A motorist from Viersen has no right to a wish plate with the combination "HH 1933". This was decided by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) Münster in a legal dispute between a car owner and the district of Viersen for a requested license plate number (file No. 8 B 629/19).
In a car license plate, this combination due to unavoidable associations with Nazism in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is immoral and therefore not allowed, the court ruled. Whether the plaintiff wanted to express a personal sympathy for the Nazi regime or not, was irrelevant because of the obtrusive to each viewer references, the highest administrative judge of North Rhine-Westphalia ruled in their final decision, with which they a ruling of the Administrative Court in Dusseldorf confirmed. The car owner, however, had filed a complaint.
Nazi Association for "average citizens" obvious
According to the court, every "average citizen" in Germany immediately realizes that the combination of letters and numbers is to be understood as an abbreviation of the Hitler salute and as a reference to the year of the so-called seizure of power of the Nazi regime. She was therefore simply immoral.
The issue of number plates with obvious Nazi features is generally prohibited by the authorities in Germany everywhere. There are different lists of prohibited combinations from state to state. While abbreviations such as "SS", "SA", "KZ" or even "HJ" are forbidden nationwide, this does not apply to other sequences in the same way. So number plates with "HH" or "88" are issued in some countries, in others from the outset not.