Google apologises for 'Adolf Hitler Square' gaffe in Maps

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By Agence France-Presse | Updated: 11 January 2014 13:11 IST
Google apologised Friday after a major square in Berlin regained its Nazi-era name "Adolf Hitler" on its popular online Maps page for a few hours.

A spokeswoman for the German unit of the US Internet giant, Lena Wagner, told AFP that it was not immediately clear how a street at Theodor-Heuss-Platz in the west of the German capital had again become "Adolf-Hitler-Platz" late Thursday, the name it bore from 1933 to 1947.

"We were made aware of a false and inappropriate street name on Google Maps and corrected it immediately," she said.

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"We apologise for this mistake."

The Nazi leader's name was no longer visible on Google Maps on Friday, and a search for Adolf-Hitler-Platz again redirects users to Theodor-Heuss-Platz.

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The square at the centre of a major roundabout was renamed after Hitler in 1933 and was to have played a prominent role in the planned "Germania" overhaul of the city into a "global capital" planned under the Third Reich.

Its name was changed after the war and finally given the name of Heuss, Germany's first post-war president, in 1963.

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The error sparked outrage in social networks and German media, with the top-selling daily Bild demanding, "How could this happen?"

Reports said Google Maps for Germany had been hacked in the past, with Cologne's famous cathedral once made to disappear entirely.

 

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