Several German churches have been accused of using six bells bearing the swastika and Nazi inscriptions.
The Evangelical Church in Thuringia has been accused of violating the country’s ban on the use of Nazi symbols.
The unidentified plaintiff accused the church of using six bells in five churches, including on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Die Welt reported.
The plaintiff, who is a relative of Nazi victims, complained he had been ignored after repeatedly asking the church to stop using the bells.
A spokesman for the church told the KNA news agency the inscriptions could be removed, but such action would need to be reconciled with rules on the preservation of historical monuments.
“The bells concerned are not publicly accessible,” Friedemann Kahl said. “We are confident that we’ll find a good solution.”
But the state’s finance minister and vice premier, Heike Taubert, said it could help pay for replacement bells.
“Nazi bells belong to the dark side of our history,” Ms Taubert said. “I don’t make much of concealing their location or altering them.”
The plaintiff has also filed a complaint against the town of Herxheim am Berg after the town allowed a bell dedicated to Hitler to continue to hang in a church.
They said the decision was a "mockery of the victims of Hitler's terror".
The bell features a Swastika and the words: “Everything for the fatherland – Adolf Hitler.”
Last year, a survey by Der Spiegel magazine found at least 23 Nazi bells remained in churches around Germany.
