Cop Sentenced to Prison for Posting Photo of Hitler’s Favorite Food

A police officer in Austria has been sentenced to a conditional prison sentence of 10 months after he shared a photo of a dish supposedly favored by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

The man, who has not been named in media reports, is a police officer in the Austrian state of Burgenland. He was found guilty of violating the Verbotsgesetz 1947 – otherwise known as Prohibition Act 1947, which aims to suppress a revival of Nazism in the country.

It is alleged that the officer shared a photo of Hitler’s favorite meal on April 20, the dictator’s birthday, last year. Hitler was originally from Austria and later migrated to Germany.

“Lunch today! Egg dumplings with green salad!” the man wrote on Facebook along with a photo of the dish, according to ORF, a public service broadcaster in the country.

The dish is called “Eiernockerl mit grünem Salat” in German and is often referred to as Gnocchi in English. It is widely understood that Hitler was a vegetarian by the time he came to power in Germany.

The police officer was sentenced to 10 months in prison at a court in Eisenstadt, the region’s capital, on April 5 after the jury found him guilty by a vote of five to three.

He was also fined €6,300 ($7,500). However, the decision is not final and the prison sentence is only conditional, according to ORF. He can appeal but it’s not yet clear whether he will do so.

Neither the prosecution nor the defense made any statement to the country’s media on Monday. The officer in question was temporarily suspended from duty last year and the Burgenland State Police Command is waiting on the ultimate outcome of the case, when its disciplinary commission will then review the matter.

The police officer was also a member of the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria), a conservative political party. Another FPÖ member who was a Facebook friend of the officer commented on the post “Blondi is missing”, according to Kurier, an Austrian daily newspaper

Blondi was Adolf Hitler’s dog. Deputy Burgenland FPÖ state party chairman Alexander Petschnig said in April 2020 that both men involved in the Facebook post would resign their membership of the party.

References to egg dumplings and green salad are a common way to show support for the Nazi dictator. The idea that this was Hitler’s favorite dish was reportedly popularized by Austrian Holocaust denier Wolfgang Frolich, who was a district council member for the FPÖ, according to The Jerusalem Post.

“For many many years I’ve been eating Adolf Hitler’s favorite dish Eiernockerl with green salad almost every week,” Frolich wrote in a statement in 1997. “I do that, because this highly political meal […] is one of my favorites. If my memory serves me right, I’ve eaten Eiernockerl with salad every year on April 20, Hitler’s birthday.”