Cold war sequel: It’s Truman vs Marx now

The ‘‘Truman versus Marx’’ dispute also reflects the emotional gulf that still separates Germany more than 12 years after Communist east Germany was reunited with the democratic West.

The Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a think-tank, moved its headquarters from the western town of Koenigswinter to Potsdam just south of Berlin two years ago, setting up in a lakeside villa which Truman had used as his residence during the famous post-war conference with Britain and the Soviet Union in July 1945.

But the think tank, with close links to the pro-business Free Democratic Party, has balked at having ‘‘Karl-Marx-Strasse 2’’ as its address. It lobbied state and local leaders to rename at least part of the lane in front of the villa after Truman.

‘‘You have to swallow hard when you first see our address as Karl-Marx-Strasse,’’ Director of Administration at the Naumann Foundation, Ulrich Wilke said. ‘‘Yet if you think more deeply about Marx’s original ideas,it’s a name you can live with,’’ he said. ‘‘It was only later on that his ideas were corrupted. We’re a tolerant and liberal institution. On the other hand we feel naming the square here after Truman would be an appropriate gesture.’’

The request, which was supported by Potsdam’s mayor and the Brandenburg state premier, was unexpectedly vetoed by the Potsdam culture Commission, a local council with jurisdiction over the naming of streets and squares.

Their arguments reflected Cold War animosities and the Communist-bloc’s somewhat tainted view of history that Truman was a war monger largely responsible for the division of Germany and Europe that followed the 1945 Potsdam Conference.

‘‘It is entirely inappropriate to name a street in Potsdam after Truman because it was here he gave the order to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki,’’ Culture Commission, council member Helmut Przybilski said.

‘‘There needs to be a counterweight to all these communist names,’’ said Wilke. ‘‘Apparently, it is taking a lot longer for Germany to be truly reunited than we all thought it would.’’ (Reuters)