However, the Koblenz Appeal Court said the local council had to go ahead with its plans to install an explanatory plaque.

A complaint about the bell - which is adorned with a massive swastika and the words “Everything for the Fatherland - Adolf Hitler” - was made by a local Jewish man.

The unnamed complainant, whose relatives survived the Holocaust, argued that the bell made a “mockery” of Hitler’s victims.

However, the court found that the town of Herxheim am Berg was not trying to downplay the Nazi leader’s crimes.