Thirty-eight years after Hitler’s death, the town of Hagen in North Rhine-Westphalia has decided to deprive the fuehrer of the honorary citizenship it bestowed on him on April 8, 1933, shortly after he became Chancellor of the Third Reich. The town council withdrew the honor because of Hitler’s criminal acts. Hagen is the second West German town to do so; Paderborn was the first. More than a dozen other towns throughout Germany have failed to take similar action. The Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia explained that the title of honorary citizen normally expires with the death of the person concerned.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
