Fans of the Lazio football club attracted attention with fascist chants at the Munich Hofbräuhaus on Monday evening, one day before the Champions League round of 16 against FC Bayern. A cell phone video published in several Italian newspapers shows about 50 of them in the restaurant. They sing, and at the end of the film you can clearly hear the call “Duce, Duce, Duce”. This is how the Italian fascists called their leader Benito Mussolini. Some of those involved also stretch their right arms upwards in the style of the “Roman salute”, which is banned in Germany as a Hitler salute.
The press office of the police headquarters confirms an operation at the Hofbräuhaus and investigations into the use of license plates of anti-constitutional organizations, but cannot yet provide any further information.
The Hofbräuhaus itself announced through a spokesman that the police had taken the personal details of a Lazio ultra and were investigating him. This happened as part of the routine monitoring of such fan gatherings. “We are very happy that the police intervened,” said the spokesman. “If they weren’t, we would have done it.”
The videos circulating on the Internet caused outrage and were strongly condemned by the sports commissioner of the city of Rome. “The images of Lazio fans singing hymns in honor of the Duce and showing the Roman salute in Munich during the Champions League game are a disgrace for Lazio, for all fans and for the city of Rome. That is why I condemn in the strongest possible terms “What can be seen and is unfortunately going around the world in these hours,” said Alessandro Onorato. Such scenes have occurred again and again at Lazio games in the past.