Germany’s defence minister has called for the names of Nazi-era figures to be removed from military barracks.

“The armed forces have to make it clear, both internally and to the outside world, that they are not a continuation of the Nazi Wehrmacht,” Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday.

Historians welcomed the initiative, but called for an exception to be made in the case of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the “Desert Fox”, because of his part in an assassination plot against Hitler.

While there are no modern German barracks named after major Nazi war criminals such as Hitler or Hermann Göring, several are still named after military figures from the Third Reich.