Delete directory and all symlinks recursively

To delete a directory with all contained files I chose the usage of shutil as common.

import shutil
from os.path import exists
if exists(path_dir):
    shutil.rmtree(path_dir)

Unfortunatelly my solution does not work throwing the following error.

FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '._image1.jpg'

A quick search showed that I'm not alone having this problem. Comparable, still unsolved question can be found here. In my understanding rmtree is equivalent to rm -Rf $DIR which now seems not to be the case.

Any ideas appreciated.

p.s. for reconstruction purposes. Please create a symbolic link for example using ln -s /path/to/original /path/to/link

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