A German village has decided to allow a Nazi-era bell adorned with a swastika and the words “All for the Fatherland — Adolf Hitler” to remain atop a church.
In a 10-3 tone deaf vote Monday, the parish council of Herxheim am Berg decided the 1934 bell should remain as “an impetus for reconciliation and a memorial against violence and injustice,” Agence France-Presse reported.
The council ignored residents who chimed in by calling for the 530-pound bronze bell to be dismantled or hauled off to a museum, Deutsche Welle reported.
It also turned down an offer by the regional Protestant Church to pay for removing the bell from the 1,000-year-old heritage-listed church, the Jakobskirche, and replacing it.
The tiny village of just 700 people has made headlines for the controversial “Hitler bell” since a former church organist complained about the inscription, AFP reported.
Some church-goers were shocked to learn that they had gotten married, baptized their children or taken part in various religious events under the Nazi relic.
Last year, then-Mayor Roland Becker was forced to resign after arguing that not everything was bad during the Nazi era.
During Monday’s meeting, Mayor Georg Welker said it was better that the bell stay put rather “than if it would hang in some museum where someone could stand in front of the bell at any time and take a selfie.”
He presented an expert’s opinion that the bell had heritage value and should either stay in place or be taken to a museum.
Getting rid of it would represent “an evasion of a reasonable and enlightened culture of remembrance,” the expert said.
The council’s ringing endorsement to keep the bell and put it back into operation was greeted with applause from many community members, German news agency DPA reported.
After the vote, former organist Sigrid 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 very saddened “that this could happen — that they allow a bell dedicated to a murderer to hang in the church.”