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Police intervene as notorious neo-Nazi goes on squirrel-killing spree

A neo-Nazi best known for spending 15 months in jail for attacking a leading Green party politician is again in trouble, after shooting several squirrels in his garden, Bild reports.

Published: 25 July 2017 16:45 CEST
Police intervene as notorious neo-Nazi goes on squirrel-killing spree
Photo: DPA

Neighbours in the town of Wandlitz just north of Berlin spotted Bendix-Jörg W. as he prowled through his garden on Saturday morning carrying an air rifle, the tabloid reports.

Then the known neo-Nazi started shooting at the little rodents sitting in his trees.

“One animal hung in the tree after being hit,” one neighbour told tabloid B.Z. “Then it fell down and he shot it again. It was ice cold.”

Squirrels tails pinned to a tree trunk as trophies also indicated that the extremist had killed several of the animals, which are protected under German law.

Police counted three dead squirrels in the garden and confiscated the air rifle as well as other guns and ammunition.

They are now investigating contraventions of weapons laws and of animal protection laws, according to Bild.

Bendix-Jörg W. is best known for attacking veteran Green party MP Hans-Christian Ströbele with a metal bar shortly before a national election in 2002. He was sentenced to 15 months in jail for the crime.

According to BZ, the 49 year old makes no secret of his Nazi sympathies. An SS flag emblazoned with a skull flies in his garden near a gallows with the inscription “snitch’s swing.”

Brandenburg police were not available for comment on the story when The Local contacted them on Tuesday afternoon.

SEE ALSO: Kardashian-shaped squirrel finally freed from Munich manhole cover

NEO-NAZI

Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at ‘horrific’ neo-Nazi rally

Prosecutors in Madrid on Tuesday said they had opened an investigation into anti-Semitic comments made at a neo-Nazi rally held at the weekend which drew ire from Spain's Jewish community.

Published: 17 February 2021 10:33 CET
Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at 'horrific' neo-Nazi rally
File photo of a man making a fascist salute in Madrid. Photo: AFP

The incident took place Saturday when around 300 people gathered at La Almudena cemetery, with footage on social media showing several people in the crowd repeatedly giving the Nazi salute.

The rally, which was also attended by a Catholic priest, was a commemoration of the so-called “Blue Division”, a unit of Spanish military volunteers that fought for the Nazis during World War II.

At the cemetery, they laid flowers in front of the memorial to the fallen Blue Division soldiers.

During the rally, a young woman gave an inflammatory speech echoing rhetoric from the 1930s.   

The region's prosecutors confirmed they had opened “criminal investigation to gather information about the anti-Semitic statements” which could constitute an offence relating to the exercise of fundamental rights and public freedoms, according to a statement received by AFP.    

“It is unacceptable that such serious anti-Semitic manifestations go unpunished,” said Isaac Benzaquen, head of the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities, indicating that a complaint had been filed.

Israel's ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, also tweeted her condemnation, saying the statements were “repugnant and have no place in a democratic society”.

And the American Jewish Committee (AJC) described the rally as “horrific”, calling on the Spanish government on Twitter “to censure these groups endangering democracy”.

At least 200,000 Spanish Jews were forced into exile by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492. Known as Sephardim — the Hebrew term for Jews of Spanish origin — many fled to the Ottoman Empire or North Africa and later to Latin America.   

Today the Jewish community in Spain numbers around 40,000 people, community sources say.

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