The students of a police school in Colombia had the curious idea of dressing up as Nazi and SS soldiers for a “cultural exchange” in homage to Germany. Ten photos of the ceremony, organized in the police academy Simon-bolivar of Tulua, in the southwest of the country, were broadcast Thursday, November 18, on an official Twitter account of the police.
Toda una polémica ha provocado el evento realized en las últimas horas en la escuela de Policía Simón Bolívar de Tuluá. Los uniformados disfrazaron of Adolf Hitler, haciendo alusión al nazismo durante la semana de la internacionalización. #VocesySonidos pic.twitter.com/EoS4JqvzrC
– BLU Pacífico (@BLUPacifico) November 18, 2021
We see police students in verdigris uniforms of the Wehrmacht. One of them wears a small, false black mustache à la Adolf Hitler. Other participants wear the black uniform of the SS, with the red swastika armband. Three of them, a German shepherd at the foot, strike a pose in front of a cardboard fortress.
The black, red and yellow colors of the Federal German flag decorate the interior of a room with balloons of the same color. Visitors will discover the reproduction of a Luftwaffe plane, copies of the weapons of the Nazi army. Swastika banners are stuck on the tablecloths. Other students wear “Polizei” t-shirts. Also according to these photos, two police officers, in Colombian uniform, inaugurated the small demonstration by cutting a ribbon in the colors of modern Germany.
Colombian President condemns
These photos were greeted with a mixture of disbelief and amazement, between bronca on social networks and deep embarrassment of the authorities. “Any apology for Nazism is unacceptable and I condemn any demonstration that uses or refers to symbols alluding to those responsible for the Jewish holocaust which claimed the lives of more than 6 million people”President Ivan Duque said on Twitter on Friday.
Police dismissed the school principal and apologized for what she called “an educational activity on universal history”. The Ministry of Defense, on which the police in Colombia depend, also issued a statement to reassure that “the guidelines of the training policy within the Defense do not in any way envisage an activity such as the one held yesterday “. In a joint statement, the embassies of Germany and Israel in Bogota have “expressed their total rejection of any form of apology or manifestation of Nazism”.