The grave of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his wife Loki was vandalized with swastika paintings, Hamburg police said. The police have, for the moment, no information on the identity of the culprit(s), nor on the motivations.
The grave of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his wife Loki was vandalized with swastika paintings, police in Hamburg, in the north of the country, told AFP on Saturday. “The red-painted swastikas were discovered on Friday evening on their grave in a Hamburg cemetery and could be immediately erased,” police said.
Leader of West Germany between 1974 and 1982
The police currently have no information on the identity of the person or people who allegedly vandalized the grave, nor on the motivations. The investigation continues. Born in Hamburg on December 23, 1918, the social democrat Helmut Schmidt would have been 105 years old on Saturday. Died on November 10, 2015, he led West Germany from 1974 to 1982, when the country became a global economic power.
A convinced European who embodied “Realpolitik” during the Cold War, he initiated a new economic liberalism within German social democracy. A month ago, in France, two members of a group of 13 people were arrested and indicted for public apology for a crime or misdemeanor. They were suspected of having sprayed swastikas on the ground in the 17th arrondissement of the capital.