1 Year For Hitler Fan With Swastikas Covering Home

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  • Post category:Crime

Story By: Alex Cope, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News

This Hitler ‘fanatic’ who surrounded his home in Swastikas, Third Reich flags and anti-Semitic messages has been sentenced to one year in prison.

Georges Boeckstaens, 77, was sentenced to one year in prison for breaking Belgian’s Holocaust denial law by a court in the city of Leuven in the Flemish Brabant province of Belgium.

Boeckstaens surrounded his home in the town of Keerbergen with Nazi symbolism including self-made Swastikas, images of Hitler, and Third Reich flags.

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Unia, a Belgian equal-rights organisation, had filed two civil cases against Boeckstaens, claiming he had hung anti-semitic messages in his garden along with the Nazi symbolism.

Local newspaper Nieuwsblad report a judge has now found him guilty, saying during sentencing: “It has been sufficiently demonstrated that the defendant intended that third parties should take note of the symbolism surrounding his house.

“This is evident from the Nazi symbols and the symbols he adorned his home in Keerbergen with. He has sufficiently shown that he knowingly approves of genocide.”

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All of the Nazi symbolism has now been removed from his home by the authorities and the judge added: “WWII shaped the defendant into who he is now. He grew up in a family that collaborated with the Nazis.”

He was ordered to pay a fine of 800 EUR (726 GBP) in addition to the one-year prison sentence, according to Nieuwsblad.

Boeckstaens had argued that his “interest” in Hitler and the Third Reich is the idea of a structure which sought to provide stability in Germany after the hyperinflation of the 1930s.

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Local newspaper HLN report he said: “It is unjustifiable that this turned into senseless bloodshed and violation of human rights in WWII. I have never said publicly offensive language to anyone. Nor have I incited hatred or expressed negative comments about people’s nationality or race. For me, this is a piece of history that simply fascinates me.”

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