GERMANY:Germany's Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm has stripped Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler of his honorary citizenship, two months before world leaders arrive there for the G8 summit.
The town was one of the first in the country to make Hitler an honorary citizen - in 1932, a year before he rose to power - apparently because he holidayed there several times.
Thousands of other towns followed suit in subsequent years, but they all struck him from the honour roll after the second World War.
Officials in Heiligendamm never got around to doing this, however, and many assumed that the dictator's suicide in 1945 and the cold war division that put the town in East Germany meant the honour had lapsed.
But as reports began to appear in the world press, local officials got nervous. They are hoping the town, located 15km (9.3 miles) west of Rostock, will benefit from the free publicity surrounding the G8 summit.
Allowing the shadow of Hitler to fall over proceedings was inconceivable, so mayor Hartmut Polzin promised to put an end to the "ugly and unnecessary discussion".
"Independent of whether this honorary citizenship was still valid after Hitler's death, the town council voted unanimously to revoke it," Mr Polzin said yesterday.
The step comes three weeks after a politician floated the idea of stripping Hitler of his German citizenship entirely.
The Austrian-born dictator was naturalised in February 1932, brushing off congratulations with the memorable words: "You should congratulate Germany, not me."
The idea is unlikely to get very far, however: German law prohibits citizenship being stripped from someone who would be left stateless as a result, even a dead dictator.
"Dead is dead," remarked an official in Lower Saxony, where the suggestion was made. "There's nothing more you can take away from them."