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03-20-2007, 10:23 AM
By Khuê Pham in Berlin
Thousands of German cities awarded Hitler honorary citizenship during his lifetime. Most were quick to revoke the title after 1945, but some, like the G8 summit venue of Bad Doberan, forgot to do so -- and are now left with red faces.
Bad Doberan still has to get used to being in the international spotlight. This June, the heads of the eight leading industrialized nations will descend on the sleepy eastern German town to discuss global issues at the G8 summit.
But too much attention can bring to light inconvenient truths, as the people of Bad Doberan are learning to their cost: they stand accused of still having Adolf Hitler, the ultimate persona non grata, as one of their city's honorary citizens. In a pioneering gesture, their city council awarded the dictator the title in 1932, but -- in contrast to most of Hitler's honorary citizenships elsewhere -- it seems to never have been officially revoked.
Globalization critics brought the issue to light last Friday. Since then the dusty documents in the city council archive have taken on a new significance. Mayor Hartmut Polzin wishes one of those papers would read "revoked." But there's no time or money for the thorough search of the archives which might get the council off the hook before the G8 summit.
How can a German city neglect something as politically explosive as a tribute to the Nazi dictator for so long? The mayor says that the official assumption had been that Hitler's honorary citizenship expired with his death in 1945, so it was considered a closed case. Legal experts have their doubts, however.
Now local politicians want to show the world that they are serious about tackling their past. A city council debate on the topic has been scheduled for April 2. "We need to bring this issue to an end," says state parliament member Henning von Storch and adds: "I hope that the meeting will send a clear signal."
A national pastime
Bad Doberan is far from an isolated case. Honoring Hitler as a freeman of a city was a national pastime under his dictatorship, especially in the early years, according to Rüdiger Schulz who researched the topic for another city council. "When Hitler came to power in 1933 the whole country was bitten by a bug," he says. "Everybody wanted to give him an honorary citizenship and nobody wanted to be the last one."
Over 4,000 cities awarded the despot the title on his 44th birthday on April 20, 1933. Such was the run on citizenships that his Nazi Party imposed a ban on accepting the tribute later that year, says Schulz. It was lifted again five years later when Austria and parts of the Czech Republic then known as the Sudetenland were annexed.
Seven years later, the situation changed again: with the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, having Hitler as an honorary citizen suddenly became taboo. Most cities -- like Berlin for example -- immediately rescinded it.
But in other places, the remains of the Nazi days lasted much longer. The city council in Aschersleben where Schulz works is such an example: it only got around to officially renouncing Hitler's honorary citizenship last year.
Like Bad Doberan, Aschersleben is located in what was the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), a fact which partly explains the city's bureaucratic amnesia: As the GDR considered itself an explicitly anti-fascist state, it didn't consider itself related politically or legally to the preceding Third Reich. So strong was the sense of a new beginning that nobody in Aschersleben even bothered to check for links with the town's Nazi past.
The topic came only up when a contemporary witness enquired about the city's relationship with Hitler in the 1980s. Local archivists searched through old documents and discovered that the dictator was still listed as a freeman of the city -- but nothing was done about it. "Nobody was scandalized by the findings, nobody really cared." says Schulz, "The overall sentiment was that this had nothing to do with us any more, so there was no need to rescind the title."
It was only last year that the issue became pressing. In January 2006, the neighboring town of Bitterfeld became involved in a media scandal after it listed Hitler among its honorary citizens on the official city Web site. After much public criticism, Bitterfeld quickly removed the dictator from its home page and honor list -- and pressure came on to Aschersleben to do the same.
Aschersleben finally closed the case in March 2006 with an official city council divestiture. Seventy-three years after the city had awarded the honorary citizenship to the dictator for his "achievements to the national rebirth of the German fatherland," it revoked it on the basis of his "contribution to the unparalleled genocide against European Jews and the war of extermination against the international community."
There may be many other similar cases due to the sheer number of honorary citizenships for Hitler, thinks Klaus Hesse, a historian and exhibition curator at Topography of Terror, a Berlin foundation devoted to documenting National Socialism and post-Nazi Germany.
But, he says, the issue is "peanuts" in comparison to other Nazi-related problems: "Many Nazi collaborators were left untouched after the war and many victims never received adequate compensation for their suffering."
Culture of denial
There are even cities outside Germany where Hitler may still be an honorary citizen. Take the formerly German and now Czech town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), for example. According to Schulz, this is another place where Hitler continues to be a city freeman: the honorary citizenship was awarded when Karlovy Vary was under Nazi occupation, but it was never revoked by the Czech city council because they didn't feel responsible for something that was part of the city's German past.
But it still seems like a sore point today. Lukas Pokorny from the city council was reluctant to comment on the topic. "This is a very sensitive issue," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "All I can say is that Hitler visited our city in the past but I'm not sure if he's still listed as a honorary citizen."
Jürgen Langowski, editor of two Web sites dedicated to documenting the Third Reich and the Holocaust, can understand the reluctance to broach the subject. "I'm sure that most city councilors want to distance themselves from the issue of Hitler's honorary citizenship," he says. "But perhaps they prefer not to rescind it for fear of drawing too much attention to the issue."
For Langowski, the issue exemplifies how Germany deals with its past. He talks of a national "culture of denial" in which controversial topics like Hitler's honorary citizenships are conveniently forgotten about.
"Germany likes to sweep the past under the carpet," he says.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
..................
Thousands of German cities awarded Hitler honorary citizenship during his lifetime. Most were quick to revoke the title after 1945, but some, like the G8 summit venue of Bad Doberan, forgot to do so -- and are now left with red faces.
Bad Doberan still has to get used to being in the international spotlight. This June, the heads of the eight leading industrialized nations will descend on the sleepy eastern German town to discuss global issues at the G8 summit.
But too much attention can bring to light inconvenient truths, as the people of Bad Doberan are learning to their cost: they stand accused of still having Adolf Hitler, the ultimate persona non grata, as one of their city's honorary citizens. In a pioneering gesture, their city council awarded the dictator the title in 1932, but -- in contrast to most of Hitler's honorary citizenships elsewhere -- it seems to never have been officially revoked.
Globalization critics brought the issue to light last Friday. Since then the dusty documents in the city council archive have taken on a new significance. Mayor Hartmut Polzin wishes one of those papers would read "revoked." But there's no time or money for the thorough search of the archives which might get the council off the hook before the G8 summit.
How can a German city neglect something as politically explosive as a tribute to the Nazi dictator for so long? The mayor says that the official assumption had been that Hitler's honorary citizenship expired with his death in 1945, so it was considered a closed case. Legal experts have their doubts, however.
Now local politicians want to show the world that they are serious about tackling their past. A city council debate on the topic has been scheduled for April 2. "We need to bring this issue to an end," says state parliament member Henning von Storch and adds: "I hope that the meeting will send a clear signal."
A national pastime
Bad Doberan is far from an isolated case. Honoring Hitler as a freeman of a city was a national pastime under his dictatorship, especially in the early years, according to Rüdiger Schulz who researched the topic for another city council. "When Hitler came to power in 1933 the whole country was bitten by a bug," he says. "Everybody wanted to give him an honorary citizenship and nobody wanted to be the last one."
Over 4,000 cities awarded the despot the title on his 44th birthday on April 20, 1933. Such was the run on citizenships that his Nazi Party imposed a ban on accepting the tribute later that year, says Schulz. It was lifted again five years later when Austria and parts of the Czech Republic then known as the Sudetenland were annexed.
Seven years later, the situation changed again: with the defeat of the Nazis in 1945, having Hitler as an honorary citizen suddenly became taboo. Most cities -- like Berlin for example -- immediately rescinded it.
But in other places, the remains of the Nazi days lasted much longer. The city council in Aschersleben where Schulz works is such an example: it only got around to officially renouncing Hitler's honorary citizenship last year.
Like Bad Doberan, Aschersleben is located in what was the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), a fact which partly explains the city's bureaucratic amnesia: As the GDR considered itself an explicitly anti-fascist state, it didn't consider itself related politically or legally to the preceding Third Reich. So strong was the sense of a new beginning that nobody in Aschersleben even bothered to check for links with the town's Nazi past.
The topic came only up when a contemporary witness enquired about the city's relationship with Hitler in the 1980s. Local archivists searched through old documents and discovered that the dictator was still listed as a freeman of the city -- but nothing was done about it. "Nobody was scandalized by the findings, nobody really cared." says Schulz, "The overall sentiment was that this had nothing to do with us any more, so there was no need to rescind the title."
It was only last year that the issue became pressing. In January 2006, the neighboring town of Bitterfeld became involved in a media scandal after it listed Hitler among its honorary citizens on the official city Web site. After much public criticism, Bitterfeld quickly removed the dictator from its home page and honor list -- and pressure came on to Aschersleben to do the same.
Aschersleben finally closed the case in March 2006 with an official city council divestiture. Seventy-three years after the city had awarded the honorary citizenship to the dictator for his "achievements to the national rebirth of the German fatherland," it revoked it on the basis of his "contribution to the unparalleled genocide against European Jews and the war of extermination against the international community."
There may be many other similar cases due to the sheer number of honorary citizenships for Hitler, thinks Klaus Hesse, a historian and exhibition curator at Topography of Terror, a Berlin foundation devoted to documenting National Socialism and post-Nazi Germany.
But, he says, the issue is "peanuts" in comparison to other Nazi-related problems: "Many Nazi collaborators were left untouched after the war and many victims never received adequate compensation for their suffering."
Culture of denial
There are even cities outside Germany where Hitler may still be an honorary citizen. Take the formerly German and now Czech town of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), for example. According to Schulz, this is another place where Hitler continues to be a city freeman: the honorary citizenship was awarded when Karlovy Vary was under Nazi occupation, but it was never revoked by the Czech city council because they didn't feel responsible for something that was part of the city's German past.
But it still seems like a sore point today. Lukas Pokorny from the city council was reluctant to comment on the topic. "This is a very sensitive issue," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "All I can say is that Hitler visited our city in the past but I'm not sure if he's still listed as a honorary citizen."
Jürgen Langowski, editor of two Web sites dedicated to documenting the Third Reich and the Holocaust, can understand the reluctance to broach the subject. "I'm sure that most city councilors want to distance themselves from the issue of Hitler's honorary citizenship," he says. "But perhaps they prefer not to rescind it for fear of drawing too much attention to the issue."
For Langowski, the issue exemplifies how Germany deals with its past. He talks of a national "culture of denial" in which controversial topics like Hitler's honorary citizenships are conveniently forgotten about.
"Germany likes to sweep the past under the carpet," he says.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
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