(CNN) An American man suffered minor injuries in Dresden after being punched for making a Nazi salute while drunk in a bar, German police said Sunday.

The 41-year-old man "was very drunk" early Saturday morning when he made the "Hitler greeting" at a bar in the Neustadt district of Dresden, deputy police chief Lutz Milker said.

"He didn't say anything -- just the salute. So far we have no explanation why."

German dictator Adolf Hitler gives the Nazi salute from his motorcade in 1936.

The Nazi salute, Hitlergruß in German, is performed with the right arm straight and pointed forward slightly at an angle upward with palm down. It was commonly used during the Third Reich as a greeting and to show loyalty to the Nazi regime.

After the tourist stepped outside the bar, "someone hit him, and he had minor injuries to the head," Milker said. Paramedics bandaged him on the scene and he was not hospitalized.

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