This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

An iron gate with the slogan “Arbeit macht frei” (work will set you free) that was stolen from the former Nazi concentration camp in Dachau two years ago has been found in Norway, police say.

“Due to an anonymous tipoff, police in Norway’s Bergen have secured an iron gate with the well-known text,” Bavaria state police said on Friday. “From the picture transmitted, police believe it is highly likely that this is the iron gate that was stolen from Dachau.”

The theft of the 100kg (220lb) gate was reported on 2 November 2014, sparking uproar, with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, calling it “appalling”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers install a replacement gate at Dachau in April 2015 after the original was stolen. Photograph: Christof Stache/AFP/Getty Images

The Dachau camp, just a few miles from Munich, opened in 1933, less than two months after Adolf Hitler became chancellor. It was first used to incarcerate political prisoners, but during the second world war it became a death camp where more than 41,000 Jews were slaughtered before US troops liberated it on 29 April 1945.

Another sign with the same inscription at Auschwitz was stolen in 2009. The mastermind of that theft, the Swedish neo-Nazi Anders Högström, was caught and jailed for two-and-a-half years.

The metal sign was eventually recovered cut up into three pieces. A replica was displayed above the entrance until it was restored in 2011.