An aide of a Green Party lawmaker tweeted an image of the symbol, found scratched into an elevator door in a Bundestag office building. Displaying Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany and can carry a three-year jail term.
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German police on Sunday launched an investigation after a swastika symbol was found in a parliament building in Berlin.
A spokesperson for the Bundestag said that the unconstitutional symbol had been spotted carved onto the door of an elevator, according to German news agency DPA.
A staffer of Green party lawmaker Dieter Janecek tweeted a picture of the swastika scratched into the door in the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, an office building for lawmakers next to the Reichstag that houses parliament.
The place where the swastika was found has since been taped over. "The position in the elevator in a Bundestag office building has been temporarily taped over," the Bundestag spokesperson confirmed.
Swastikas and other banned symbols can, however, be displayed if they are used for "civic education, countering anti-constitutional activities, art and science, research and education, the coverage of historic and current events, or similar purposes," according to the Criminal Code.
That means movies and TV series — such as Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Amazon's The Man in the High Castle — are usually exempt from such jurisdiction.
Former Nazi college reopens as museum to prevent extremism
The Nazis built Vogelsang Castle to train their young elite. Still strewn with swastikas and images of grandeur, the facility is now reopening as a museum. It serves as a warning to future generations.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
The Nazi ideal
A new exhibition at the Vogelsang College, a former Nazi School in western Germany, opens on September 11 as part of a 45-million-euro ($50-million) project to secure the crumbling buildings. The exhibition includes this model of a bas-relief depicting idealized athletes at Vogelsang. The damaged original still stands at the sports ground of the site.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Making up for past wounds
The original bas-relief "Athletes" can be found in the sports ground of Vogelsang College. Most of the 2,000 exclusively male students schooled there and at another Nazi college in Krössinsee in what is now Poland came from lower-middle-class backgrounds and had suffered unemployment in the recession that preceded Hitler's rise. The curriculum consisted largely of physical exercise and drills.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Site used for military after WWII
Vogelsang straddles a slope overlooking a spectacular vista of lakes and wooded hills in the Eifel region of western Germany. It was off-limits for 60 years because it was used as a military base and training camp for NATO troops.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Medieval imagery
This Teutonic knight can be seen at an entrance tower to Vogelsang College. Formed at the end of the 12th century, the Teutonic knights were an order formed to protect Christian pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. Many of the Nazi symbols draw on medieval imagery.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
How ordinary men became capable of terror
Pictured from the new exhibition is a photo of the "cult chamber" which featured a statue of the "new German man" flanked on the walls by the names of "martyrs" killed in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. The exhibition also contains striking photographs of ordinary-looking men smiling in their uniforms, as well as interactive displays with testimony by Holocaust victims.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
The making of monsters
Stefan Wunsch is the scientific director of the exhibition. He is pictured with an exhibit containing an interview with Lithuanian Holocaust survivor Mascha Rolnikaite, talking about the so-called "Butcher of Vilnius" Franz Murer, a former college student at a different Nazi college in Krössinsee who was responsible for killing thousands of Jews in Lithuania.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
What does Vogelsang mean for me?
"Visitors are confronted with the question, 'What has this got to do with me?' If you look at political developments today, it's very relevant," says Gabriele Harzheim, a researcher at Vogelsang. Here, she is pictured standing in the former cult chamber inside the main tower of Vogelsang with photos of it in its original state.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
A tarnished site
Vogelsang was opened to the public in 2006 after the Belgian army vacated it, confronting authorities with a dilemma because the place is festooned with Nazi symbols and statues. Researcher Gabriele Harzheim is pictured holding a historic photo of the site.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Ideological architecture
The communal halls at Vogelsang were feudal and elaborately decorated, while the squat, barrack-like dormitories were spartan to emphasize the community over the individual.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Historical witness
Organizers expect the new exhibition and surrounding facility to draw 300,000 visitors per year. However, neo-Nazis also continue to visit the place. This five-meter (16.4-foot) torch bearer at Vogelsang College is a popular location for them to unfurl propaganda banners and have photos taken of themselves.
Image: DW/D. Crossland
Nazi sites may draw extremists
Museum directors and tourism officials are well aware of the risk of pandering to "dark tourism" - neo-Nazis fascinated with the macabre grandeur of the Nazi regime. Curators have tried to break the spell with sober exhibitions and architectural changes that counter the soaring bombasticism of Hitler's architects.