German neo-Nazi is jailed for eight months after his Auschwitz tattoo was spotted when he went swimming

  • A German court sentenced far-right politician Marcel Zech to eight months in prison on Monday for displaying a tattoo of the Auschwitz death camp 
  • He also had a slogan from the Buchenwald concentration camp's gate, 'Jedem das Seine' — 'to each his own' 
  • Prosecutors appealed after district court gave him a six-month suspended sentence in December
  • On Monday, a state court in Neuruppin imposed the new tougher sentence
  • Presiding judge Joern Kalbow said the public might view a suspended sentence as 'the state retreating in the face of right-wing radicalism'

By Allan Hall In Berlin for MailOnline

Published: 03:38 EST, 8 November 2016 | Updated: 04:32 EST, 8 November 2016

A German neo-Nazi who went swimming at a public baths with a picture of the death camp of Auschwitz tattooed on his back has been jailed.

Marcel Zech, 28, is a politician with the far-right NPD party which the German government has been unsuccessfully trying to ban for years.

He also had the words 'Jedem das seinem' etched on his skin.

This sinister motto translates as 'everyone gets what he deserves' and was inscribed at the entrance to the brutal Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany.

Marcel Zech was jailed for combining an image of the Auschwitz death camp with the slogan from the Buchenwald concentration camp's gate, 'Jedem das Seine' — 'to each his own'

The German politician has been jailed for eight months after originally getting a suspended sentence in December

More than a million Jews were killed at Auschwitz in Nazi-occupied Poland during the war, while tens of thousands of people were murdered and worked to death at Buchenwald.

Displays of Nazi images in public are strictly forbidden under Germany's postwar constitution and Zech was jailed for eight months by a court in Brandenburg on Monday for sedition.

The sentence was the result of an appeal by prosecutors against an earlier court verdict which handed him down a six month suspended jail term.

Marcel Zech admitted displaying the tattoo while at a swimming pool. Prosecutors appealed after a district court in Oranienburg gave him a six-month suspended sentence in December

Jörn Kalbow, the court chairman said; 'A suspended sentence would have been perceived by the population as a retreat from the dangers of right-wing radicalism.'

Zech horrified bathers at a swimming pool in the state of Brandenburg near Berlin last year when he was seen with the hate-filled tattoos on show.

The 28-year-old has a criminal record for race hate crimes. 

In June last year he was ordered to pay 360 Euros after posing as a police officer to try to learn the identities of anti-fascist demonstrators who tore down NPD posters in his town.

In a 2013 court appearance he was fined 1,200 Euros for assault. In 2014 he was elected as a local councillor in Barnim.

He works as a window cleaner and, according to media reports, has been seen at least once before swimming in a lake with his tattoos on show. On his stomach he has a tattoo of an old Reich eagle - not a forbidden symbol.

Zech horrified bathers at a swimming pool in the state of Brandenburg near Berlin last year when he was seen with the hate-filled tattoos on show

On his left arm he has a black sun, a typical Nazi-era symbol. 

Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency, lists him as a 'neo-Nazi.'

He belongs to one group which provocatively buried a wooden swastika in the ground opposite the gates of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.

In court he wore a Thor Steiner sweat shirt - an apparel line in Europe favoured by far-right sympathisers - and appeared shocked when he was told he would be going to jail.

His lawyer said the Auschwitz tattoo had since been modified to portray popular German cartoon characters Max and Moritz. But the Buchenwald script apparently remains unchanged.

His attorney added that he will appeal the sentence to a higher court.

 

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