The mayor of a German town has refused demands to take down an SS helmet that decorates the grave of a Nazi general.
The headstone of Hermann Kriebel, the Obergruppenführer of the Sturmabteilung (SA), located in Aschau, Bavaria has been adorned with a decorative steel SS helmet since his death in 1941.
The SA was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party.
Historian Sabine Schalm of the Munich Institute for Urban History and Remembrance Culture asked local officials about removing the helmet in 2020. She explained that it contained a swastika, a public display of the Nazi symbol which is illegal under German law, according to the Jewish Chronicle.
Officials made arrangements for the swastika to be removed from the grave marker earlier in 2022. But Aschau Mayor Simon Frank stopped that from happening.
When questioned by the Chronicle, he replied that he saw “no need” to remove the Nazi symbol.
“The issue was already discussed privately in the municipal council in 2019 before my term of office. As a result, there is currently no need for action from the point of view of the municipality,” he said.
Another sticking point is that the municipal cemetery is public but the gave is the property of the Kriebel family, which has complicated matters.
Aschau resident Natascha Mehler told the news outlet: “The facts about Hermann Kriebel are horrible. I find a steel helmet as a grave decoration neither appropriate nor contemporary, especially if you consider the biography of Kriebel and his Nazi past.”