VIENNA - Like many others in Austria's countryside, a tower bell above the red-tiled rooftops of Wolfpassing village marks the passing of each hour with an unspectacular "bong." But this bell is unique: It is embossed with a swastika and praise to Adolf Hitler.
And unlike more visible remnants of the Nazi era, the bell was apparently overlooked by official Austria up to now.
Ensconced in the belfry of an ancient castle where it was mounted by fans of the Nazi dictator in 1939, the bell has tolled on for nearly 80 years. It survived the defeat of Hitler's Germany, a decade of post-war Soviet occupation that saw Red Army soldiers lodge in the castle and more recent efforts by Austria's government to acknowledge the country's complicity in crimes of that era and make amends.
The Wolfpassing bell pays homage to Hitler for his 1938 annexation of Austria, a move supported back then by the vast majority of the nation's citizens.
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It describes Hitler as "the unifier and Führer of all Germans" and says he freed the "Ostmark" - Nazi jargon for Austria - "from the yoke of suppression by foreign elements and brought it home into the Great-German Reich."
Local historian Johannes Kammerstaetter says most villagers would have known about it. But village Mayor Josef Sonnleitner asserts even the villagers had no clue until the media reports last month on the "Fuehrerglocke," or "Führer Bell."
In any case, the government's recent sale of the castle - with all its historical trappings - has suddenly made the bell an issue beyond the sleepy village of 1,500 people about 60 miles west of Vienna. In a country particularly sensitive about suggestions it has not fully faced its Nazi past, officials are scrambling for explanations of why the bell apparently evaded notice for so long. Propagating Nazi values or praising the era is illegal in Austria.
