Teacher says Happy Birthday to Hitler (4)

(ANSA) - Ascoli Piceno, April 20 - An Italian high-school teacher on Friday wished Adolf Hitler a Happy Birthday on Facebook. The teacher, who works at an agrarian high school in the Marche city of Ascoli Piceno, wrote in German "129 times Happy Birthday", sparking a row.
    Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.
    The teacher, Felice Spiocchi, is deputy head of the school.
    The local anti-racist centre wrote to the education ministry saying "there can be no place in public schools for those who show open sympathy with the emblem incarnate of negation of the democratic rights that identify us, and human rights".
    The local animal rights association said the teacher's act was an "insult to all the victims of the SS".
    Spiocchi told ANSA "I only sent birthday wishes to a person...whose artistic works I admire for some verses".
    "I'm not a person of the left and that is a huge mistake," he said.
    Spiocchi then said he had not wanted to wish Hitler a Happy Birthday, but a German photographer and artist who was born 129 years ago, Colmar Walter Hahn.
    He said "the pandemonium that has been created is surreal".