Berlin, Oct. 15 : Over 1,000 black garden gnomes with their right arms raised in a Heil Hitler salute have been put up in the German town of Straubing - all in the name of art.

In all 1,250 gnomes will be on display.

The sculptures, displayed in a military formation in the centre of Straubing, in Lower Bavaria, are designed, according to the artist Ottmar Hoerl, "to get people to think, to react", reports The Telegraph.

Nazi salutes and symbols relating to the Third Reich have been illegal in Germany since the end of the Second World War, but Hoerl argued successfully in court that his 15-inch gnomes were ridiculing the Nazis, not promoting their ideology. t The artist says that his work "Dance With the Devil", represents "symptoms of a political disease," and is designed to draw attention to the rise of the far-right in Europe. (ANI)