Refusal to Salute the Flag

Paul Schneider refused to remove his cap at the roll call during flag-raising in Buchenwald concentration camp on Hitler’s birthday, April 20, 1938, and called the swastika flag a symbol of criminals, which he would not salute.

As punishment, he was strapped to the flogging post, beaten with truncheons before the eyes of his fellow prisoners and subsequently placed in solitary confinement in the arrest cells, the so-called “Bunker”, for over one year.