What a "Nazi" thing to do!

Pictured: Swastika the size of a tennis court is trampled into a German cornfield

By Allan Hall

Last updated at 5:02 PM on 24th August 2010

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Sixty-five years since it became illegal to display one the size of a thumb, a gigantic swastika has been discovered in a cornfield in Germany.

Authorities fear neo-Nazis trampled the crop in a field in Assling, Bavaria, to create the enormous symbol adopted by Adolf Hitler and his followers.

Although only visible from the air the swastika - the size of a tennis court - is proving embarrassing to local authorities.

Swastika in field

It was reported at the weekend by a photographer who glanced out the window while flying over the field in a light aircraft.

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The swastika is so perfectly aligned that authorities believe they are dealing with hard-core neo-Nazis, rather than drunken yobs.

Police inspector Gerhard Karl said: 'We never had something of this dimension.'

Displaying the swastika and other emblems of the Nazis is an offence in Germany that carries up to three years in jail.

Symbol of hate: Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party adopted the swastika, which has been banned in Germany since the end of World War II in 1945

Six years ago in Assling police smashed a right-wing group who met in a caravan bedecked with Nazi paraphernalia.

More recently hate-mail has been directed at the chairman of an association which helps refugees and asylum seekers.

In 2000, German authorities chopped down dozens of russet-coloured larch trees that had been planted to form a giant swastika in a forest of evergreen pines.

Berlin ordered in the chainsaws after numerous complaints that the trees were an 'affront' to modern democratic Germany. They had been planted in 1938 and, like the cornfield swastika, could only be seen from the air.