![Google apologizes for accidentally naming Berlin street after Adolf Hitler](http://natmonitor.com/news/wp-content/uploads/google4.jpg)
After being made aware of the problem, Google swiftly switched the road back to its correct name and issued an apology to the public for any offense that may have been caused.
Even Google makes mistakes every once in awhile.
According to a brief report recently published on the Business Today website, an intersection in Berlin was shortly tagged as “Adolf-Hitler-Platz” on Thursday. The road name, while offensive due to its ties to history’s most hated dictator, wasn’t entirely inaccurate, since the intersection did actually bear that name prior to the downfall of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II.
The spot was one of many roads and intersections throughout Germany that were named after Hitler during his 1933 to 1945 reign. Naturally, all of the roads were swiftly renamed after the war, as Hitler became a source of national shame and guilt for the people of Germany. For instance, the Adolf-Hitler-Platz in question instead took on the name of Theodor Heuss, the first President of West Germany to take office after the war.
For as long as Google Maps have been popular, the navigation maps for Berlin have always marked the Theodor-Heuss-Platz intersection with its proper name. Google does allow users to make changes and suggestions to maps via a “Report a mapping issue” function on the Google Maps application. However, when users do report a wrong or missing road name, Google makes a point to review each suggestion individually to make sure that no joke names make it through. Apparently, the Adolf-Hitler-Platz name simply made it past Google’s approvers and moderators.
After being made aware of the problem, Google swiftly switched the road back to its correct name and issued an apology to the public for any offense that may have been caused. All told, the mapping error was visible for just a few hours on Thursday.
This isn’t the first time Google Maps have been plagued by mistakes or blunders, though it may well be the first time Google has accidentally endorsed pride for a fascist dictator. Still, despite the potentially offensive nature of the brief Hitler sighting, it’s entirely probable that this particular blunder will simply become an internet mistake that bloggers chuckle about a few years down the road.
The internet has certainly done well at making light of Google Maps oversights so far. Tech website CIO currently has a blog post titled “6 Memorable Google Maps Mishaps,” highlighting a few of the funnier mistakes that Google has made with its mapping application over the years. The blunders included a New Jersey woman whose home address was mistakenly marked as a State Park, the deletion of an entire Florida city from all mapping records, and several border disputes exacerbated by inaccurate Google Maps information.
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