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Germany in Nazi Gnome horror!

Started by Richard Hakluyt, July 17, 2009, 09:47:21 AM

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Richard Hakluyt

July 17, 2009, 09:47:21 AM
In Nuremburg as well!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8155542.stm


"Germany opens 'Nazi' gnome case
Ottmar Hoerl gnome in Nuremberg gallery
The artist says his gnomes ridicule, rather than glorify, the Nazis

A garden gnome giving the Nazi salute has landed a German artist in trouble with the authorities in Nuremberg.

Prosecutors are investigating whether the gnome, which went on show in one of the city's galleries, breaks the strict law banning Nazi symbols and gestures.

The Bavarian city is particularly sensitive about the Nazi era because Adolf Hitler used it for big rallies and leading Nazis went on trial there.

The artist, Ottmar Hoerl, says his gnomes poke fun at the Nazis.

"I'm astonished that a single garden gnome, in what is for me an obscure gallery in Nuremberg, has unleashed such a public discussion because of an anonymous denunciation by someone," Mr Hoerl said.

The 59-year-old artist has been president of Nuremberg's Academy of Fine Arts since 2005.

"I didn't put it in the art gallery. Someone must have bought it and put it there. But I don't know what all the fuss is about.

"With my gnomes I'm highlighting the danger of political opportunism and right-wing ideology. I get the feeling that this gnome has reopened an old wound," he said.

Last year hundreds of his "Nazi" gnomes went on show in the Belgian city of Gent, in an exhibition called "Dance with the Devil".

Mr Hoerl said that Belgians had well understood the political meaning "when one portrays the master race as a garden gnome".

"In 1942 I would have been murdered by the Nazis for this work," he said.

A spokesman for the Nuremberg public prosecutor's office, Wolfgang Traeg, said "we're checking to see if garden gnomes fall into the same clear category as posters that show the swastika crossed out"."





Caliga

#1
July 17, 2009, 09:49:57 AM
How can I get one for my garden.  This article fails epically at answering that question.  :mad:
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Savonarola

#2
July 17, 2009, 09:51:43 AM
 :mad:

They should take the artists house away and make him a gnome-ad.
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

derspiess

#3
July 17, 2009, 09:54:22 AM
Quote from: Caliga on July 17, 2009, 09:49:57 AM
How can I get one for my garden.  This article fails epically at answering that question.  :mad:

x2.  Give me a Goering gnome & tell me how much I need to pay.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

garbon

#4
July 17, 2009, 09:56:33 AM
Why don't you two clowns contact the artist listed?
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

derspiess

#5
July 17, 2009, 10:04:56 AM
Quote from: garbon on July 17, 2009, 09:56:33 AM
Why don't you two clowns contact the artist listed?

Okay.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

saskganesh

#6
July 17, 2009, 10:07:12 AM
Quote from: Caliga on July 17, 2009, 09:49:57 AM
How can I get one for my garden.  This article fails epically at answering that question.  :mad:

Texas: http://www.cleanairgardening.com/gardengnomes.html (ok, no nazis)

however, the owner manual says that you are really supposed to steal one from a random European's lawn, and then post random pictures of said gnome on the random internet.
humans were created in their own image

Syt

#7
July 17, 2009, 10:08:16 AM
Odd. Back in my home town there was a guy with all kinds of garden gnomes in his garden. Right next to his door stood a two foot tall one, opening his trench coat to reveal his goods.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

garbon

#8
July 17, 2009, 10:14:38 AM
Quote from: derspiess on July 17, 2009, 10:04:56 AM
Okay.
That said, he doesn't list it as a product available in his website's shop.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Caliga

#9
July 17, 2009, 10:26:04 AM
Quote from: derspiess on July 17, 2009, 10:04:56 AM
Quote from: garbon on July 17, 2009, 09:56:33 AM
Why don't you two clowns contact the artist listed?

Okay.
Thanks.  :hug:
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Josquius

#10
July 17, 2009, 10:41:18 AM
Silly but just imagine the uproar there would be if they suggested getting rid of this outdated law...
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Zanza

#11
July 17, 2009, 10:45:43 AM
Maybe I just never notice them or the places I live are not their natural habitat, but I can't think of when I have last seen a garden gnome.

Drakken

#12
July 17, 2009, 11:41:53 AM
Heil Gnome!  :lol:

Norgy

#13
July 17, 2009, 11:47:10 AM
I suppose he should be free to litter his own gnome with them. But does he have a gnome-du-plume?

Valmy

#14
July 17, 2009, 12:33:06 PM
The poor Romans.  They used this salute for centuries and then some barbarian Germans use it for a decade and suddenly it is a 'Nazi' salute.

Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."
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