Berlin
- The municipal parks department in Berlin has stymied plans by the
German armed forces to celebrate a brave but unsuccessful 1944 attempt
to assassinate Adolf Hitler, it emerged Monday.

The Defence Ministry, which annually honours the bomb plot by Colonel
Claus von Stauffenberg as exemplary initiative by an army officer,
confirmed that it was "greatly upset" at the rebuff.

The armed forces had planned to swear in hundreds of recruits by
torchlight on the lawn in front of the Reichstag parliament building
this July 20. But as it happens, the lawn does not belong to parliament
but to the municipality of Berlin.

Co-existence between the military and the city's leftists and pacifists
is often uncomfortable. Military parades on the streets are rare, and
protesters even disrupt swearing-in parades on army land.

The city is ruled by a coalition of Social Democrats and the Left Party.

In a letter dated June 18 but not made public till Monday, the streets
and parks department refused a permit for the forces to march on the
lawn, where tourists and residents often picnic and Euro 2008 crowds
recently cheered football games on big screens.

The bureaucrats said they could only permit assemblies on the lawn if
they were of "overwhelming public interest," adding that the
swearing-in was of "general public interest" but did not necessarily
have to take place there.

They added that letting anybody use the lawn would turn it into an
"events space" detract from its meaning for "German democracy."

The application to use the lawn had been explicitly supported by the speaker of the parliament, Norbert Lammert.

"We're greatly upset that a parks department takes it upon itself to
decide on the dignity of this space," said an army spokesman.

The July 20, 1944 plot is the subject of a film starring Tom Cruise
which was shot last year but has not yet been released. (dpa)