Last week, Alexander Gauland, one of the leaders of the German far-right party AfD, was reportedly bathing in a lake near Potsdam when a man shouting "for Nazis, there is no bathing place" stole his clothes.
Unter dem Ausruf "Nazis brauchen keinen Badespaß" wurden Alexander #Gauland am Wochenende die Klamotten geklaut, als er an einer illegalen Badestelle am #Potsdam'er Heiligen See baden war. @maz_online @PNN_de @alx_froehlich @janboehm https://t.co/wgj6DVvfOo
Gauland told local media that witnesses at Heiliger See called the police for him. He has filed a criminal complaint.
This happened last week, but the news of the incident only spread on Tuesday. The image of Gauland walking away from the alleged crime scene wearing only his trunks with a police escort proved unsurprisingly popular.
#Germany: A man shouting "for #Nazis there is no bathing place" stole the clothes of Alexander Gauland, co-leader of the neo-fascist #AfD party. The action took place last week in a lake near #Potsdam. #fckafd https://t.co/cnK7VcXg4C
Made my day. https://t.co/EiMQLYnqhB
2018 ist ja doch ganz witzig https://t.co/nVWBBHaMvN
"2018 is so funny."
And yeah, there are a lot of jokes like this being made.
Some heroes steal capes https://t.co/Peb5HVTK53
God bless you, unidentified German clothes-stealing man. https://t.co/7th88DXgnD
However, the photo has also provoked a debate in German media overwhether it is OK to laugh at a far-right politician who's had his clothes stolen. Bild, the country's biggest paper, refused to print the image.
Alexander Gauland, head of the AfD, (same guy who called the Holocaust "just a bird dropping on 1,000 years of German history") had his clothes stolen while swimming at a lake the other day. Which is funny. Even funnier? German media debating whether it's OK to share the photo. https://t.co/DbgC0S31ed
(Obviously theft is a crime.)
USA: Hot disputes about whether it's ok to punch a nazi. GER: Hot disputes whether it's okay to retweet the picture of a nazi (AfD-nazi Gauland) who had his clothes robbed by Antifa while swimming in a lake. smh. Priorities, Germany, priorities. https://t.co/V2vJPRh00H
excellent example of the fact you can handily bash racist bastards without actually being violent. https://t.co/BpxKtH2lDD
The spread of the photo comes days after Gauland said the Nazi era was merely a "bird shit" in thousands of years of "successful" German history, during a meeting of his party's youth organisation.
"Hitler and the Nazis are merely a bird shit in 1,000 years of successful German history," said co-leader of Germany’s far-right AfD, Alexander #Gauland, on Saturday. Front page of German newspaper @Tagesspiegel today: https://t.co/f511u8tnaU
His remarks were condemned by many in Germany, and he later released a statement saying it "was never my intention to trivialize or deride the victims of this criminal system.”