STRAUBING, Germany—Ottmar Hoerl’s "Nazi gnomes" are back, now lined up in the central marketplace of this town in southeastern Germany in an exhibit titled “Dance With the Devil.”

Hoerl, an art professor as well as an artist, installed 1,250 of his "poisoned" garden gnomes, their arms outstretched in a Hitler salute, as a protest against lingering fascist tendencies in German society, he says. In an exhibition last year at a Nuremberg gallery, 700 of the same figures were on display, prompting an investigation by authorities after a viewer complained that the figures broke German laws forbidding the use of Nazi symbolism. The case was eventually dropped after a court ruled earlier this year that the gnomes were clearly satire and could be allowed. In Straubing, most of the figures are black plastic, with around 20 painted gold.

Read more at the London Daily Mail.