A colossal Nazi-era swastika unearthed earlier this week in a sports field in the northern German port city of Hamburg was destroyed by authorities on Friday.
To break up the gargantuan 4-by-4-meter concrete symbol, a digger was used to first break it into pieces. Then a hydraulic drill was attached to the machine's front to break down the remaining pieces.
Workers had been digging on Tuesday to make way for the construction of new changing rooms when they struck upon the swastika some 40 centimeters under the earth, Joachim Schirmer, head of the Billstedt-Horn sports club, said.
Schirmer said that the sports field had been the site of a Nazi monument that was dismantled in the early 1970s.
Officials from the monument preservation office, responsible for administered such finds, were informed quickly after the discovery.
"It should be removed as quickly as possible," a spokeswoman for the office said Tuesday, adding that leaving it there may attract right-wing extremists.
The display of Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany.
