Berlin: A regional branch of one of Germany's main political parties is planning a legal bid to have Adolf Hitler posthumously stripped of his German citizenship.
Some 75 years after Braunschweig (Brunswick) enabled the then stateless Hitler to get German citizenship, Social Democrats (SPD) in the state that now incorporates the former statelet want to strip the Nazi dictator of his nationality.
''It's meant as a symbolic gesture,'' said Simon Kopelke, parliamentary spokesman for the SPD in the state of Lower Saxony, yesterday. ''But it's also what Braunschweig wants.''
''Who would want Hitler to have wormed his way into citizenship in their home city, of all places?'' he said. Braunschweig has had to live with the stigma of being the city which helped Hitler become a German citizen, thereby providing him with the platform he used to seize power.
The Austrian-born Hitler gave up his Austrian citizenship in 1925 and only obtained German nationality when Nazi officials in Braunschweigsecured a position for him as a civil servant in the local administration in late February 1932.
As a civil servant, Hitler was automatically granted German citizenship, which allowed him to stand for election as president of the German Reich the following month.
Although he did not secure enough votes to win, the Nazis were soon the strongest party in Germany's parliament, the Reichstag, and the following year Hitler became Chancellor.
Kopelke said the SPD, which was banned by the Nazis when Hitler came to power, hoped the plan initiated by a local member of the state parliament would help to shed more light on how the former art student rose to the top in Germany.
''It's not something that gets a lot of attention,'' he said. ''Whether Hitler was a German citizen or not was never something one gave much thought—it's just something that was assumed.''
Kopelke said the SPD was presently only trying to ascertain whether stripping Hitler of his citizenship was possible. Although the SPD governs Germany at federal level in coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, it is not in power in Lower Saxony, and the move would need the backing of the ruling party—Merkel's Christian Democrats.
''So far all we've heard from the (Christian Democrat) interior ministry is that they don't think there's any legal way of posthumously revoking someone's citizenship,'' he said. ''But if there is a possibility, then we'll pursue it.''
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