Google has released an official apology for a recent snafu. A street next to the Theodor Heuss Platz square in Berlin, Germany, which should have been called Theodor Heuss Platz, was mistakenly labeled as Adolf Hitler Platz after the notorious World War II leader, by Google Maps.
The incident has drawn the ire of Berliners and Google immediately scrambled to undo the mistake. While the company has not disclosed how long the error was in place, local Berlin news reports indicate that the error was in place for a few hours.
While the mistake has roused the ire of many local residents, it does have some historical relevance. The square was originally called the Reichskanzlerplatz but it was renamed after Hitler back in 1933 when the Nazi leader first rose to prominence. The plaza was part of Hitler's grand scheme of remaking Berlin into a "global capital" during the Nazi Germany years. In this time period, many of Berlin's streets and landmarks were renamed after Hitler.
After the Second World War however, the street was once again called by its former name. The street later was renamed as Theodor Heuss Platz back in 1963 in honor of the death of the country's first president. Many other streets and locations also reverted to their old names while some were renamed completely.
"We were made aware of a wrong and inappropriate Berlin street name on Google Maps and have corrected this as quickly as possible," says Google in a statement to NBC News. "We apologize for this error."
Google Map errors are fairly common and there have also been reports of hackers tampering with Google Map locations in the past. There was also another incident when a hacker infiltrated Google Map servers to remove the location marker for a famous cathedral in Cologne, Germany.
The latest error has proved to be an embarrassing one for Google but it may have simply resulted from a simple error with the service's map marker tool. While the company has apologized for the event, Google has not released an official explanation regarding why it happened. However, the company has told the local media that it is currently investigating the details of the mistake.
