BERLIN – World-renowned photographer Helmut Newton, who fled the Nazi regime in his native Germany in 1938, will be buried in his hometown of Berlin, a city official announced Tuesday.

Newton’s widow June has accepted the city’s offer for an official grave of honour for her late 83-year-old husband, said the official, Prussian Cultural Sites Foundation head Klaus-Dieter Lehmann.

June Newton was expected to confirm the agreement to Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit.

Hundreds of graves in dozens of Berlin cemeteries, including that of former chancellor Willy Brandt, have the special status.

While a grave of honour receives extra attention from municipal gardeners and the city pays for the plot, tombstone and signposting, there is no automatic exemption from the German custom of ploughing up the grave 20 years later.

However Berlin rules allow renewal of the plot for successive 20- year periods for notable persons. Germany recycles cemetery space to make space for new burials especially in the cemetaries of large cities.

Born Helmut Neustaedter, the son of a wealthy Jewish family learned his trade at a city studio. He fled Berlin in 1938, shipped himself to Singapore, and drove trucks in the Australian army. After the Second World War he became a fashion photographer.

Newton was best known for his portraits, fashion shots and nude photographs, which appeared in Vogue, Elle and Playboy.

An exhibition of his black-and-white pictures, often perceived as shocking, will open as scheduled in Berlin on 3 June.