‘Where’s the beer?’ Neo-Nazis at a 2019 hate music festival in Ostritz, Germany were banned from drinking alcohol. Photo: Reuters / Hannibal Hanschke.

A police officer in the German city of Cologne was dismissed from his post on Friday after he was discovered to have shared Nazi imagery along with crude jokes about the Holocaust while using the WhatsApp messaging platform.

One message sent by the officer contained a picture of the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, along with a joke mocking the millions of Jews and others murdered in concentration camp gas chambers.

“What’s the difference between Santa Claus and the Jews? One goes down the chimney, the other goes up,” the joke read.

Other messages contained symbols associated with neo-Nazi and far-right groups that are banned in Germany.

Cologne police chief Uwe Jacob told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper that he had not hesitated to respond upon learning of the officer’s actions.

“When I heard about it, I immediately initiated a formal disciplinary procedure with the aim of dismissal,” Jacob said. “The dissemination of these inciting images is completely unacceptable to me and damages the reputation of the Cologne police.”

The police officer’s pro-Nazi messages were uncovered while he was being investigated for another unrelated offense. As well as dismissal from the police force, the officer is also facing criminal proceedings because of his promotion of illegal neo-Nazi symbols.