>An infamous bell dedicated to Adolf Hitler could ring again after the town council in a small German village voted not to dismantle it.
>The local council in Herxheim am Berg, a town of about 700 people north of Heidelberg, in southwest Germany, voted 10-3 Monday night to reject requests to remove the massive 83-year-old bronze bell at Kirche St. Jakobus, or the Church of St. Jacob, the regional newspaper Die Rheinpfalz reported.
>The bell bears a swastika and the inscription "Alles fuer's Vaterland — Adolf Hitler," or "Everything for the Fatherland — Adolf Hitler."
>After having hung in the church tower with little notice for decades, the bell has been the object of intense debate for almost a year after the church's organist complained about it. The town's mayor, Roland Becker, resigned in September after he gave a TV interview in which he quoted a local woman as saying Hitler should be remembered for "the things he achieved." (Becker said he'd been taken out of context, but the damage was done.)
>The new mayor, Georg Welker, supported keeping the bell in place — and even ringing it again — telling the public broadcasting program Kontraste last month that it could sound "the suffering of the victims," both Jewish and non-Jewish. Before the vote Monday night, Welker submitted a report from a historian who said the bell is an official monument, meaning it can't be altered, Die Rheinpfalz reported.
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