Swastikas daubed on former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt's grave

The grave of former German chancellor Helmut Schmidt and his wife Loki Schmidt has had swastikas daubed on it in the Hamburg cemetery where the couple lies buried, police in the northern city said on Saturday.

The grave was vandalized on Friday evening, a day before Schmidt, who died in 2015, would have celebrated his 105th birthday. The perpetrators remain unknown, and the swastikas have been cleaned off, according to the police report.

Germany's state security service has launched an investigation into the matter.

Schmidt served as chancellor between 1974 and 1982. He made a name for himself as police senator in Hamburg at the time of the 1962 flooding that devastated the city.

He served as an anti-aircraft officer in the German army during World War II, being awarded the Iron Cross for his service during the Wehrmacht's siege of then Leningrad, now St Petersburg, during the war.

Several foundations honouring the legacy of Schmidt and his wife condemned the desecration of the grave in strong terms: "This mindless vandalism is a massive attempt to damage the memory of both of them," they said in a statement.

"Both Loki and Helmut Schmidt always stood up for freedom, democracy and international understanding," it said, adding that the couple would have firmly countered inhuman tyranny and anti-Semitism.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed similar sentiments, calling it a "despicable act" that did not take the past into account, she wrote on X.

"Helmut and Loki Schmidt always stood up against contempt for humanity, racism and anti-Semitism - in the awareness of our history."