That’s what one screwball is claiming in a letter to the Grand Forks Herald.

Because the Nazis were big on statues of Native Americans, I guess.

MINNEAPOLIS — Where did the “Sitting Bull” statue in front of Ralph Engelstad Arena come from? Who is the artist who created it? What specific Native American, if any, was it intended by the artist to depict?

After so many years, and with the UND “swastika scandal” fouling the very air of Grand Forks like the stench of Simplot, isn’t it about time to get the truth and to find answers, no matter where that might lead us?

FACT: No artist or country of origin ever has been revealed in regard to the statue in question.

FACT: Ralph Engelstad liked to collect antique Nazi bric-a-brac.

FACT: It is highly unusual, almost unheard of, for a statue to be installed and for nobody to know the name of the artist or the origin of the statue. Statues might sit around and their origins be forgotten, but newly installed statues are never anonymous. Why has everybody in Grand Forks looked the other way for so long? What shame is lurking in the shadows?

I strongly suspect the statue has origins in Nazi Germany. I am still waiting for management at Engelstad Arena to provide specifics — the name of the artist, the date and place of creation — to prove me wrong.

Gotta love the old “guilty until proven innocent” ruse.  The author of this letter, one John Hoff (more on him here), isn’t going to actually provide any substantive evidence to prove that the statue is of Nazi origins.  He’s just going to throw the accusation out there and demand that someone prove him wrong.

It should be noted that Ralph Englestad, for whom the UND Fighting Sioux’s arena is named (he is also chiefly responsible for the funding of the arena), did have something of an interest in Nazi memorabilia when he was alive.  An interest that bordered on poor taste per his Wikipedia article.  But a morbid interest in the Nazis aside, there’s no evidence to show that Englestad sympathized with the Nazis.  Or held any personal racist or anti-Semitic views.

This accusation about the statue in front of Ralph Englestad Arena is just the latest bit of nonsense from busybodies with nothing better to do than get offended by a college hockey team’s nickname.