Last July, the Tübingen city council voted to name a square in the "French Quarter" part of town, known for its "alternative" lifestyle, after the Wehrmacht deserters who were executed nearby.

The ceremony to unveil the street sign marking the square took place on 21 October and was attended by about 40 people, including local media. The issue came up a few years ago when a local journalist uncovered the stories about men from the local barracks, of which there were several, being shot for desertion in a nearby wood. Intensive research by the city turned up some very little additional information in the archives.

The idea for the naming came when French Quarter resident Susanne Huebel wrote a letter-to-the-editor to the local Schwäbisches Tagblatt and launched an initiative to name a nearby square after the executed men. The name for the still unnamed square had been up for grabs for quite a while. Attempts to have local residents submit and vote on names had gotten very little response. After some wrangling in the press and in city government and in the French Quarter Forum (http://www.tuepedia.de/index.php/Forum_Franz%C3%B6sisches_Viertel), the city council voted to name the square after "The Unknown Deserter" last July. In addition to the usual arguments against such a project to honor men who had abandoned the war, there had been some resistance from people who live at the location who didn't want that to be their mailing and business address. As part of the compromise, the square was re-named, but none of the adjacent buildings has the square's name as its address.

Both Tübingen mayor Boris Palmer and Susanne Huebel spoke at the ceremony. Mr. Palmer recounted the background of the re-naming while Ms. Huebel focused on the ethical issues involved. The ceremony is completely documented in German at http://www.tuepedia.de/index.php/Platz_des_unbekannten_Deserteurs.

See photos and an Englisch translation of the explanation on the street sign at at http://sites-of-memory.de/main/tuebingendeserters.html