At the newly elected Council's opening session, Schwede was promptly rehired to the Municipal Works. He then managed to get himself elected, after the fifth try, as third deputy mayor ("Bürgermeister") on 28 August 1930, becoming the first Nazi to reach such a position. Early in 1931 he was elected second "Bürgermeister" and, on 16 November 1931, first "Bürgermeister". Coburg became the first city in Germany to see the swastika flag raised on a public building, City Hall, which occurred on 18 January 1931 two years before Hitler came to power. Schwede also got the city to grant Hitler an honorary citizenship on 16 October 1932, also the first to do so. All this created a cult of personality around Schwede, a highlight of which was the 1933 dedication of Coburg City Hall's new bell, bearing the rhyming inscription "Zu Adolf Hitler ruf ich dich, Franz Schwede-Glocke heiße ich" (roughly translated "To Adolf Hitler I call, I am called the Franz Schwede Bell").