Germany: a village decides to keep a bell dedicated to Hitler

AFP

AFP

Tuesday, 27-feb-2018 05:53

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Tuesday, 27-feb-2018 05:53

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A small German village has decided to retain the bell of his church, dedicated to Adolf Hitler, a controversial decision that the council was justified in the name of remembrance of the nazi crimes.

The municipal council of Herxheim am Berg, a town of 700 souls in the west of Germany, has voted on Monday night to maintain the protestant church of the village of the bronze bell of 240 pounds dating back to 1934, reports the news agency DPA.

The bell, struck with a swastika, and bearing the inscription “All for the fatherland – Adolf Hitler”, should be “reconciliation” and must be “a memorial against violence and injustice,” explains the council in its decision, adopted by 10 votes to 3.

A plate disposed outside of the church include the particular character of the bell “nazi”. Local elected officials have rejected the offer of the authorities of the protestant regional who offered to replace the subject controversial.

The existence of this bell had become public knowledge in 2017 and had been widely publicized in Germany, as well as members of the parish said they were shocked to learn that baptisms, marriages, and offices had been celebrated in the presence of this symbolic nazi.

In favour of its retention, the mayor, Ronald Becker, had been forced to resign after declaring that Adolf Hitler was certainly responsible for the acts appalling, but that he had also “initiated things that we still use today.”

“The community needs clarity to know what direction we want to go” said Monday evening the new mayor, Georg Welker, quoted by DPA.

He presented a study concluding that the value of historical memory of the bell that was to be classified as a monument and had to either be displayed in a museum, remained in place. Get rid of it would be tantamount to shirk “in the face of a culture of memory is appropriate and informed,” said the study, cited by DPA.