BERLIN — Police in eastern Germany said Thursday that a call from an intoxicated man led them to a stash of weapons and an altar-like collection of Nazi memorabilia including pictures of Adolf Hitler.
Officers went to the 53-year-old man’s apartment in Limbach-Oberfrohna, near the city of Chemnitz, on Tuesday night after he called police asking for help and leaving a “confused impression.”
They found a collection including knives and bullets and an “altar-like decoration” of objects in the living room, with pictures and symbols from the Nazi era, including those of Hitler.
Police said in a statement that the German man was taken to a hospital, and then his apartment searched in the owner’s presence the following day on suspicion of violations of weapons laws. They seized a cartridge belt, brass knuckles and three knives among other things.
The man voluntarily gave up other objects that weren’t “criminally relevant,” as well as Nazi-related material, police said. They were investigating where the weapons came from and said the man had no record of related offenses.
Earlier this year, authorities in Germany said that the number of far-right extremists in the country increased in 2020, as neo-Nazis sought to join protests against pandemic-related restrictions.
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said authorities counted 33,300 far-right extremists in 2020, an increase of almost 4 percent from the previous year.