A doppleganger of Adolf Hitler was arrested by Austrian police on Monday after he was seen wandering around the Nazi dictator's hometown sporting Hitler's hairstyle and his infamous moustache, according to reports.
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The man arrested is a 25-year-old Austrian national and was detained in his flat in the northern town of Braunau am Inn where the tyrannical German leader was born on April 20, 1889.
Reports state that the man referred to himself as "Harald Hitler" and was arrested under an Austrian law in 1947 which made it illegal to promote any Nazi ideology, AFP reported.
"It was obvious that he glorified Hitler," police spokesman David Furtner told AFP.
The authorities were alerted of the man after his pictures were seen on social media posing outside Hitler's birth house, which is a large yellow corner house. Other pictures of him standing in a Braunau pub dressed in traditional garb including a loden jacket and lederhosen, were also spotted online.
Local media reported that the lookalike introduced himself to patrons as "Harald Hitler" and insisted on being served "Austrian mineral water". The police said that the suspect had moved to Braunau in mid-January and did not resist while he was being arrested.
The Austrian authorities, last October, had decided to demolish Hitler's birthplace house to stop it from becoming a focal point of neo-Nazis. The house, during the Nazi rule, was transformed into a shrine to Hitler as the town attracted a wave of tourists because of it. The house was subsequently shut when the Nazis began losing control in 1944.
