Police launch investigation after swastika found in Germany’s parliament building

Displaying Nazi-era symbol punishable in Germany law with up to three years in jail

A woman counter protesting against a neo-Nazi-led anti-lockdown demonstration in Leipzig last month (Getty Images)

German police launched an investigation after a swastika was found scratched into a lift door inside the country’s parliament.  

The symbol, which is banned in Germany by law, was first spotted by a staffer working for a Green Party MP on Sunday.  

Alexander König, the staffer who reported the swastika, tweeted a picture of the Nazi-era emblem under a hashtag which means in English “Nazis in parliament”.  

He added the police had already been informed and the swastika had been taped over. 

The lift was in Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, an office building for lawmakers next to the Reichstag that houses parliament.

"The position in the elevator in a Bundestag office building has been temporarily taped over," the spokesperson for the German parliament, or Bundestag, confirmed.

Germany has laws which ban the display of “anti-constitutional” symbols. Although the legislation does not specify particular symbols, it has long included not only the infamous Nazi swastika, but also Norse-style runes used by the SS, the Nazi salute and the “Heil Hitler” greeting.  

It also covers symbols associated with other groups deemed “anti-constitutional”, such as the German Communist Party or certain Islamist extremist and terrorist organisations.  

There are exceptions made for when such symbols or language is used for educational purposes, art, or coverage of historic events, which has allowed numerous films and TV shows set during the Nazi era to be distributed in Germany.  

Those found guilty of breaching these laws can face a maximum punishment of up to three years in prison or a fine.  

The swastika was not invented by the Nazis but instead originated in the religious traditions of Asia, being most closely associated with prosperity and auspiciousness in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.  

It was then adopted by Europeans in the late 19th century and became common place across the Western world by the 1920s, before it was adopted by the Nazis, ultimately finding its place in Germany’s flag in 1935.  

There are some exceptions in Germany’s anti-swastika laws for its use in Hindu, Buddhist or Jain temples and religious practices.  

Following the rise to prominence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is now the largest opposition grouping in the Bundestag, there have been concerns far-right and neo-Nazi ideology is experiencing a resurgence in Germany.  

Although AfD politicians insist they do not glamourise the Nazi past, Germany’s security services announced earlier this year they had begun actively monitoring the activities of a radical faction within the party.   

Germany has also been struggling with a series of far-right terrorist attacks in recent years, including an antisemitic assault on a synagogue in Halle and the murder of a regional politician last year who was known to be supportive of welcoming migrants.  

Earlier this year, an immigrant-hating gunman shot dead nine people in Frankfurt, prompting more consternation about the rise in racism and hatred in Germany, 75 years after the fall of the Nazi regime.   

The head of the BfV, the domestic intelligence agency, said in February some parts of the AfD, which has 89 MPs in the Bundestag, espoused an ultra-nationalistic “völkisch” ideology which demonised foreigners and glorified the German nation, echoing Nazi propaganda which also drew on ideas of the pure German Volk to denigrate Jews and other minorities.  

Although the AfD insists it is not a neo-Nazi party, the head of the radical Flügel faction in the party, Björn Höcke, wrote in a recent pamphlet the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin was a “monument of shame”.