Police arrested 23 armed neo-Nazi activists in the Bavarian town of Wunsiedel, after a raucous demonstration and clashes with anti-Nazi protesters.
They will be charged with illegal possession of weapons, displaying Nazi symbols and disobeying police orders.
The neo-Nazis gathered in Wunsiedel Aug. 19 to observe the second anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, who killed himself in West Berlin’s Spandau prison, where he was serving a life sentence for war crimes.
Hess, who was Hitler’s deputy, lived in Wunsiedel and is rumored to be buried nearby. The actual place of his burial was not disclosed to avoid making it a neo-Nazi shrine.
The activists maintain that he was not a suicide, but was killed on the orders of the Allied powers in West Berlin. Several mass-circulation newspapers in West Germany have published stories lending credence to that allegation.
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