Austrian anti-terror cops have busted a suspected neo-Nazi with a huge arsenal of illegal weapons, over a tonne of ammunition and Nazi paraphernalia.

They said many of the guns had silencers attached and were loaded, and they even found a bust of German General Erwin Rommel, nicknamed the ‘Desert Fox’, who took part in the Nazi campaign in North Africa before being put in charge of defending the occupied French coast from the Allied Normandy invasion on 6th June 1944.

The haul included heavy machine guns, machine guns, handguns, a hand grenade, pipe bombs and other explosive materials, a sniper rifle with a scope, pump action shotguns, firearms with silencers, and over 1,200 kilogrammes (2,646 lbs) of ammunition, among other items including knuckledusters, various blades, pepper spray and electric shock devices.

The police said in a statement that many of the firearms were loaded when they were seized by the Landesamt fur Verfassungsschutz und Terrorismusbekaempfung Niederoesterreich (State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Fight against Terrorism in Lower Austria; LVT) in the town of Baden, on the outskirts of the Austrian capital Vienna.

They also said that they had seized “a steel helmet with a swastika, other Nazi devotional objects (flyers, medals, coins, a bust of Erwin Rommel) and various relevant literature”.

The authorities released this footage showing some of the items seized during the massive haul.

The footage shows what appears to be a large number of machine guns, as well as bolt action rifles, at least one pump action shotgun, various handguns, some heavy machine guns which appear to be from the World War II era, various rifles with scopes, at least two Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns, an AK-47 or a variant thereof, and at least two belt-fed heavy machine guns.

The police said they had imposed a gun ban on the 53-year-old man and his wife, who is the same age. Neither of the suspects have been named and neither the suspect nor his wife confessed during questioning, according to the police.

Police are currently investigating the suspect’s connections to see if other parties may be implicated.

The police said that “the fight against right-wing extremism is still very much topical” and added: “The man and his wife will be reported to the responsible district administrative authority and the public prosecutor’s office in Wiener Neustadt on the basis of the seized items.”

Unlike in the United Kingdom and the United States, in most cases, the public display and proliferation of Nazi symbols is strictly banned in Austria.