The normally genteel Hampstead Garden Suburb is preparing for battle - over links to a German town once a hotbed of Nazism.

The Suburb, as it is affectionately known, was partly modelled on Rothenburg, a Bavarian town which became a bastion of Nazi sentiment during the Holocaust.

The Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust is supporting a lecture on Rothenburg's architecture at the Henrietta Barnett School on Wednesday.

But not all residents are happy. One of them, Saul Zadka, said: "A huge percentage of residents are not familiar with the links to the Nazis. That ignorance has been exploited. There has been no mention of the dark history of Rothenburg. It makes me very ncomfortable."

But Trust chairman Richard Wiseman said formal links with the German town stretched no further than a visit made by trustees last spring, a small photographic display of Rothenburg's architecture, and now the lecture.

"I have got one complaint from a person who was a trustee when the arrangements were made. It's a storm in a teacup," he said.

"I don't understand why it should be an issue. Rothenburg has not hidden its Nazi history."