Berlin – A German state governor is asking a tiny town to remove a bell adorned with swastikas and Hermann Goering’s name from its memorial to Germany’s war dead.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
The bell was donated by Goering himself to the town — which once bore the deputy Nazi leader’s name and is now called Tuemlauer-Koog.
News magazine Der Spiegel reported Friday the bell, which had hung in the town’s belltower, was replaced in 2008 because it was too old to ring anymore and moved to the memorial site. A German tourist recently saw the bell and complained to Schleswig-Holstein governor Peter Harry Carstensen, who asked that it be removed.
Area mayor Christian Marwig acknowledges a sign could better explain the bell’s significance but says the Nazi past should be acknowledged and not swept under the rug.
At the U.S. Air Force museum, near Dayton, Ohio, there is a fighter plane, which was used by the Luftwaffe, and is adorned with the swastika. When I asked the curator of the museum why such a symbol was displayed at the museum, he told me that the museum was showing the weapons of the enemy during WW2. However, I didn’t agree with his rationale, and I still don’t think that a taxpayer supported museum, should have that exhibit on display.