German official fired for wishing Hitler happy birthday
October 29, 2018
A German civil servant and former Bundeswehr soldier who wished Adolf Hitler "happy birthday" on social media during his probation period was rightfully fired, an administrative court has ruled.
Officials in the regional civil service in the western state of Hesse terminated the man's employment after discovering the Facebook post in 2016.
In the post, dated April 20, the official wrote that he "wished one of the most important people in German history happy birthday." Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.
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"Irrespective of how loudly people stir up hatred against you, you were quite simply a hero to many Germans," he wrote. "I too declare my support for you."
Hesse officials also discovered that the man had taken part in two demonstrations by the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).
During one of the protests on January 30 — the anniversary of Hitler's appointment as German chancellor in 1933 — he held up a banner emblazoned with the words "asylum fraud makes us poor."
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The man had entered the Hesse civil service in 2014 after serving 12 years in the German military.
In its decision published on Monday, the Hesse administrative court upheld the man's firing and rejected his accompanying complaint. He had claimed to have no contact to the extreme right or the NPD and that he only wanted to demonstrate against the German government's asylum policy.
amp/msh (AFP, epd)