This photograph shows the launch of a new German navy vessel at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1936. In the top right-hand corner of the photograph, one man, believed to be August Landmesser, is not giving the Nazi salute like the rest of his colleagues. Landmesser was opposed to the Nazis and their racial worldview. His partner, Irma Eckler, was Jewish. Landmesser was later imprisoned in a concentration camp by the Nazis, and, upon his release, conscripted into the German Army where he was killed in action. The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute, or the Heil Hitler salute, was an official greeting gesture performed in Nazi Germany. The salute was carried out by extending the right arm into the air and saying ‘Heil Hitler’. Shortly after the Nazis came to power, the salute became the official German form of greeting. It quickly spread to public events – although its use in the private sphere was limited and declined throughout the 1930s. By 1934, special courts ...