Police investigate 'Nazi' gnome

German prosecutors have launched an inquiry into whether a garden gnome with its right arm raised in a Hitler salute in a Nuremberg art gallery breaks the law.

Salutes and Nazi symbols have been illegal in Germany since the Second World War but investigators may decide the figure is in fact ridiculing the Third Reich.

The gnome was produced by German-born Ottmar Hoerl, the president of the Academy for Fine Arts in Nuremberg.