Councilors in Herxheim am Berg in southwest Germany have voted to keep a controversial Nazi-era bell hanging at a local church. Some residents feared it could become a draw for far-right groups.
Image: picture alliance/dpa/U. Anspach
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In a vote on Monday night, the local council in a small southwestern German village decided by 10 votes to 3 that a Nazi-era bell — complete with the inscription "Everything for the Fatherland - Adolf Hitler" — should continue to hang in the local church and be put back in use.
Councilors in Herxheim am Berg, 50 kilometers (30 miles) northwest of Heidelberg, said the bell, which also bears a swastika, should serve as a force for reconciliation and a memorial against violence and injustice.
The council rejected calls by some residents for the bell to be dismantled or put in a museum. They also turned down an offer by the local Protestant church to bear the cost of installing a new one.
Herxheim am Berg Mayor Georg Welker told reporters that it was better the bell remained in the church "than if it would hang in some museum where someone could stand in front of the bell at any time and take a selfie."
The Jakobskirche has stood in Herxheim am Berg for 1,000 years Image: Getty Images/T. Lohne
Resident spoke out
The contentious bronze bell has been in the church since 1934, where it was used until recently. Its existence only became known when a former church organist, Sigrid Peters, complained about the inscription.
Following the council vote, Peters told DW she was deeply concerned about the signal the council was sending about Germany to the rest of the world.
She said she was deeply saddened "that this could happen, that they allow a bell dedicated to a murderer to hang in the church."
For Peters, the council's decision to keep and use the Nazi-era bell and the electoral success of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) aren't a coincidence.
Put back to use
After Peters found out about the Nazi-era bell and informed local media last summer, the local authority ordered an outside assessment to help councilors decide its fate. Experts came to the conclusion that the bell should be classified as a memorial and either moved to a museum or kept in the church tower.
The council decided the bell will be put back into operation, and a commemorative plaque displayed in the church to point out its history.
Months before Monday's decision, the church voted not to ring the bell any more, and would rely instead on its other two bells, which have no Nazi motif.
The German National Socialist Workers' party profoundly affected the course of 20th-century world history with their ideology, propaganda and crimes. Who were the key leaders of the movement?
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Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
As Hitler's Propaganda Minister, the virulently anti-Semitic Goebbels was responsible for making sure a single, iron-clad Nazi message reached every citizen of the Third Reich. He strangled freedom of the press, controlled all media, arts, and information, and pushed Hitler to declare "Total War." He and his wife committed suicide in 1945, after poisoning their six children.
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Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) developed his anti-Semitic, anti-communist and racist ideology well before coming to power as Chancellor in 1933. He undermined political institutions to transform Germany into a totalitarian state. From 1939 to 1945, he led Germany in World War II while overseeing the Holocaust. He committed suicide in April 1945.
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Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
As leader of the Nazi paramilitary SS ("Schutzstaffel"), Himmler was one of the Nazi party members most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He also served as Chief of Police and Minister of the Interior, thereby controlling all of the Third Reich's security forces. He oversaw the construction and operations of all extermination camps, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered.
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Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)
Hess joined the Nazi party in 1920 and took part in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to gain power. While in prison, he helped Hitler write "Mein Kampf." Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 to attempt a peace negotiation, where he was arrested and held until the war's end. In 1946, he stood trial in Nuremberg and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.
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Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)
Alongside Himmler, Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust. As an SS Lieutenant colonel, he managed the mass deportations of Jews to Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann fled to Austria and then to Argentina, where he was captured by the Israeli Mossad in 1960. Tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 1962.
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Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
A participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Göring became the second-most powerful man in Germany once the Nazis took power. He founded the Gestapo, the Secret State Police, and served as Luftwaffe commander until just before the war's end, though he increasingly lost favor with Hitler. Göring was sentenced to death at Nuremberg but committed suicide the night before it was enacted.
