AN AUSTRIAN town littered with memorials to its Nazi past - known as "brown spots" - has been forced to clean up its image.
Backed by the Chancellor, Mr Viktor Klima, the Austrian Young Socialists have succeeded in their campaign to change the hue of Wels in Upper Austria.
The brown spots are a memorial to the Waffen 55, a recreation hall sporting a swastika named after a Nazi athlete, and a street bearing the name of the composer of the Nazi anthem, The Swastika Song.
The Mayor of Wels, Mr Karl Bregartner, has voiced his opposition to renaming the sports hall and street. But he has been given until October to remove the offending signs and to erect a monument to Holocaust victims.
The sports hall, named the Moritz Etzold Hall in 1960 after an early Nazi gymnast, is to be renamed Sports Hall on the [River] Traun, and a swastika removed from the wall.
Four cement F's, standing for Frisch, Froehlich, Fromm and Frei (fresh, joyful, pious and free), form the hooks of the swastika. Last year it was whitewashed by town officials in an attempt to blend it into the wall.
The town's Kernstock Street, named after Father Ottaker Kernstock in 1959, is also to be "de-nazified". A Catholic priest, Kernstock wrote The Swastika Song. One of the founders of national socialism, he died before Hitler came to power.
For a browned off Mayor Bregartner, who has held his post for 15 years, it is a black and white issue. "As long as there are other Kernstock Streets in other towns, why should Wels have to make the change?" he asked.
The Young Austrian Socialists have said they will widen their campaign to rid Austria of the 53 other Kernstock streets, squares and lanes. Signs have already been changed in three towns, including the Dr Ottaker Kernstock Lane in Vienna.
Mr Robert Piehler, chairman of the Young Socialists, said: "We've fought for over three years for this."
Mr Bregartner has also agreed to erect a monument to the 1,200 Jews who died in Wels, which was on the death march route prisoners had to take between Mauthausen and Gunskirchen concentration camps.