A few months ago, during a history lesson at the Seven Mountains High School in Bad Honnef, a 10th-grade class came up with the idea of making history themselves. By submitting a motion, the class wanted to ensure that the town of 25,000 inhabitants near Bonn, in western Germany, officially renounced one of its honorary citizens, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Kathi, Lilly, Ronja, Mia and Selin, five pupils speaking on behalf of the class, wanted to make a clear statement against right-wing ideas together with their teacher Thomas Rott. "We live in this town, so, of course, its history also concerns us. And then we asked ourselves whether we could use our influence today to change anything about history and Hitler's honorary citizenship. We were also introduced to the topic by our teacher, and each of us then simply wrote an email to the mayor," they said in a statement.
Their initiative resulted in a petition that was ultimately signed by more than 1,363 people — 5% of Bad Honnef residents, and therefore the number required for the city council to vote on the initiative. It was a huge success for the pupils who had gathered signatures, rang countless doorbells and educated the public.
"Most of the people we spoke to knew nothing about Hitler's honorary citizenship, and many signed immediately," the five pupils said. "If someone had told us a year ago that we could achieve something so big as a small school class, we wouldn't have believed it. But more and more right-wing extremists are on the move, especially on social media, and we have to fight against that."
Hitler was an honorary citizen of 4,000 German cities
Bad Honnef made Hitler an honorary citizen on April 5, 1933 — one month after the victory of the Nazi party (NSDAP) in the Reichstag elections. The small town was one of the first to take this step, and by 1934 a total of 4,000 towns and cities had done so.
Although the honorary citizenship of the Nazi dictator automatically expired with his suicide on April 30, 1945, Bad Honnef has not officially revoked it to this day.
Mayor Otto Neuhoff was visibly pleased with the pupils' commitment.
"We are proud of the pupils, it's a great initiative," he said. "They have also learned that change through participation is possible in politics. And because they have learned that you are not a victim of anything in democracy, but that you can get involved and also have a say in how things are run at a municipal level."
Coming to terms with history
In recent years, many communities have taken the step of distancing themselves from Hitler as an honorary citizen — primarily as a signal against a social and political shift to the right. According to historian Thomas Schlemmer from the Institute of Contemporary History Munich-Berlin, this reappraisal of history in Germany happens in waves.
The first wave began directly after the end of World War II. "In 1945 and 1946, we are dealing with a rupture in the political system, which in turn has to do with the Allies, but also with a widespread need on the part of the political elites," he said. "This was also accompanied by the renaming of streets and squares — there was hardly a municipality without an Adolf Hitler street or square. However, this anti-Nazi impulse in the immediate postwar period died out more or less quickly between 1948 and 1950."
Then, said Schlemmer, there was a perpetrator-victim reversal in Germany. The many people responsible for Nazi atrocities suddenly saw themselves as innocent people who had been persuaded by a small group of Nazi criminals around Hitler to do things that they did not actually want to do.
Germany put the reappraisal of its own history on hold for decades. "But at the same time, the debate about the Nazi past was given a new impetus in January 1979 with the broadcast of the US series Holocaust, also known as the New History movement," said the historian. "A combination of academically trained historians and laypeople such as schoolchildren and teachers suddenly wanted to know how the Nazi era unfolded in our country."
Making the important first step
This period, 40 years ago, also saw Bad Honnef's first unsuccessful attempt to distance itself from its infamous honorary citizen. Now, a good 91 years after the honor was bestowed, the town wants to finally put an end to this inglorious chapter.
For Schlemmer, it's an overdue step with great symbolic value — and an expression of a process that is underway throughout Germany.