Cooper Allen

USA TODAY

Two suspected neo-Nazis, one of whom was dressed as the Cookie Monster, were arrested for allegedly promoting extreme right-wing ideology in a German school, NBC News reports.

Britain's Daily Mail says Steffen Lange, dressed as the Sesame Street character, and another man distributed pamphlets to children at a school in Senftenberg, Germany. The pamphlets said, "To Be German is Cool," police told NBC.

Police searched the homes of the two men, who are in their early 30s, and released them, pending official charges, NBC reports.

The searches of the suspects' homes turned up computers with neo-Nazi material.

The Daily Mail reports that among the images found on the confiscated computers was one featuring the Cookie Monster standing alongside Adolf Hitler and others with a caption saying, "Who ate my biscuit?"

This latest incident is not the first time the Cookie Monster has been used to promote Nazism in Germany.

Police are investigating whether the two men involved in this incident are tied to 20 other episodes related to the Cookie Monster, police spokeswoman Ines Filohn told NBC.

The Guardian reports that a police spokesman explained the decision to use the children's show character as a bid by neo-Nazis to make their ideology appear "harmless and everyday and perhaps something a bit fun and a bit rebellious."