A town in western Austria is planning to remove a memorial to three soldiers who were members of the Waffen SS during World War II, The Associated Press reported on Friday.
Public broadcaster ORF reported that the mayor of Imst, Stefan Weirather, confirmed that the municipal workers will dismantle the site.
The memorial was built in the 1970s for three men who were portrayed as having been executed by American troops on May 19, 1945, more than a week after Nazi Germany had capitulated to the Allies.
Residents concerned about the frequent visits by far-right supporters later researched the men’s military records and found they had in fact been members of the Waffen SS.
Glorifying the Nazi era is a crime in Austria, which is also the birth country of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, whose birth house in the northern town of Braunau has attracted neo-Nazis and other extremists for years, with extremists making the trip to the town to take a picture in front of the building.
Last year, Austrian officials unveiled plans to "neutralize" Hitler's birth house by turning it into a police station, with the building receiving some cosmetic changes in the process.
The yellow corner house in on the border with Germany, where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, was taken into government control in 2016, after MPs approved an expropriation law specifically aimed at the property.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)