Wisconsin police investigating Nazi salute class photo

Police in the US are investigating after a photo emerged of dozens of teenage boys performing a Hitler salute at a high school prom.

The photo shows more than 50 male students from Baraboo High School in Wisconsin assembled as if for a formal portrait, with their right arms raised in a “Sieg Heil” gesture used as a greeting in Nazi Germany.

One student in the group also appears to be forming an “okay” sign, a gesture commonly associated with online white power groups. Others are seen grinning and laughing in the group portrait, taken outside Baraboo courthouse.

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Only a handful keep their arms lowered, with a few visibly confused or uncomfortable.

The photo, taken last spring, has gone viral after it was shared by the anonymous operator of a local parody account called Welcome to Baraboo on Sunday evening.

The now-deleted tweet was captioned: “We even got the black kid to throw it up #barabooproud”, an apparent reference to a black student participating in the mass salute.

Astonishingly, the only boy in the photo to identify himself says that the pose was the idea of the professional photographer taking the photo.

“As soon as I heard the photographer say, ‘Raise your hand,’ I knew what was going to happen,” student Jordan Blue told CBS. Blue is pictured at the top right of the image and is one of the few students with his arms lowered.

Blue said that he believes his classmates decided to turn the gesture into a Nazi salute “as a joke” and that they “knew what the symbol represented”.

“It did not represent my morals, and I could not do something that I didn't believe in,” he added.

Photographer Peter Gust admitted instructing the students to raise their arm, but said the gesture was a farewell wave which had been misinterpreted.

“I said, 'OK boys, you're going to say goodbye to your parents. So wave,’”, he told local media. “For society to now turn it around and now blame these kids is absolutely wrong.”

However, Vice reporter Jules Suzdaltsev, who spoke to Blue as well as dozens of former and current Baraboo high school students, says a picture emerges of a culture of casual bigotry in the mostly-white town of 12,000 people.

The Baraboo police department is aware of the photo controversy and officers are assisting the school district's investigation, the Green Bay Press Gazette reports.

On Monday, the school district addressed the controversy with a Facebook post stating that the photo “is not reflective of the educational values and beliefs of the School District of Baraboo” and that authorities would consider “all available and appropriate actions, including legal” in response.