The swastika is Slavic and fascist. The true origin of the swastika

Quote post Swastika - the oldest Slavic symbol

symbol "卐" or "卍", Skt.. स्वस्तिक from स्वस्ति swasti- greeting, wish of good luck, prosperity) - a cross with curved ends ("rotating"), directed either clockwise or against it. - SWASTIKA DID NOT HAVE ANYTHING IN COMMON WITH FASCISM UNTIL 1941

The Swastika was popular among the Slavic peoples, undoubtedly the most prosperous in the ancient world. The possession of the most extensive and richest lands and population is the legacy of this prosperity. The swastika accompanied the Slavs from the first to the last day of their lives, showing off on amulets, clothes, cradles, cult objects and structures, weapons, banners, coats of arms, etc. It takes its form from the most global, most impressive human substance - cosmic, copying the profile of galaxies (our galaxy is named Swati), comets and the trajectory of the polar constellation - Ursa Minor.

The swastika reflects the main type of movement in the Universe - rotational with its derivative - translational, is capable of symbolizing any philosophical categories and, most importantly - do not let yourself be offended .

Therefore, the Slavs used at least 144 varieties of the Swastika. Here are some of them, followed by a short description:

The swastika, that is, a cross with curved ends, has been known to many peoples, including the Slavs, for a long time. The ends of the swastika can be bent both clockwise and counterclockwise. Its color can be different, there are different options for shapes and locations. Banned the fascist swastika at the Nuremberg trials as Nazi symbols. Our kpasnoarmey also once wore a swastika on their uniform.

This symbol - the swastika - has been used by the ancient Aryans, Slavs and other peoples since time immemorial. It's just that Hitler made the swastika a symbol of his party, and when he came to power and a symbol of the Third Reich.

Indicates the symbol of the Sun, Solstice.

The swastika is one of the most widely used graphic symbols that has been used by many peoples of the world since ancient times. This symbol was present on clothes, coats of arms, weapons, household items. In Sanskrit svasti means happiness. In America, these are four letters L four words Love -love, Life -life, Luck - fate, luck, Light - light.

Hitler made the swastika a symbol of Nazi Germany and since then the attitude towards her has changed. She became a symbol of Nazism, barbarism, misanthropy. The Nazi swastika was a black hoe-shaped cross with the ends pointing to the right and rotated at an angle of 45 degrees. After the Second World War, the image of the swastika was banned in several countries.

The German swastika appeared during the reign of Hitler. He approved it as a symbol of the Aryan nation.

But the swastika appeared before Hitler's Germany, and for many peoples meant the symbol of the Sun, solar energy. True, these two swastikas differ in that the corners of the cross are turned in the other direction.

The swastika is a cross with the continuation of the sides, both clockwise and counterclockwise.

It gained great popularity after the Second World War, when the Nazis made a swastika with clockwise rotation of the sides as their symbol and became famous all over the world ...

In fact, the swastika appeared a very long time ago and was a symbol among many peoples, mainly from the positive side - it meant movement, the sun or together: the movement of the sun, as well as light and in many respects well-being ...

Germany acquired this symbol in the summer of 1920, then Hitler approved it as a symbol of the party in which he was the leader ...

By the way, Hitler thought that this symbol - the swastika actually reflected the struggle of the Aryans and as the triumph of the victory of the Aryan race ...

Is the swastika the oldest graphic symbol? or?, which was used by almost all peoples in the world, but Nazi Germany used the swastika sign as a sign of Nazism and because of this coincidence everyone thinks that it is prohibited.

The German swastika is not any swasti used by all peoples as a symbol of the sun and prosperity.

The Nazi swastika has distinctive features - it is a quadrangular cross with angles bent at 45 degrees and turned to the right. For comparison, the Suasti (Kolovrat among the Slavs) is turned to the left. Well, the color scheme for different peoples to indicate the symbol of the sun is different.

The Nazis took the swastika idea from Indian culture.

In India swastika - this is the visual embodiment of the sound Omquot ;:



The Nazis, without the knowledge of the Hindus, took the idea of ​​this sign from them and rechecked the meaning of the symbol.

Even the word Aryans taken from the Indian Arya which means the highest, pure.

In India, this word was used in a positive sense: courteous, sophisticated, learned, and the Nazis called the Aryans the upper class of people.

Many Germans behaved somewhat like Hindus. Himmler practiced yoga, called himself a Kshatriya (the second most important caste in India) and claimed to be waging a just war.



The Nazis received new spiritual knowledge from India from the spy Savitri Devi. She passed on to Hitler all the information about the customs of India, and the SS leader altered everything to his tune.



Following the traditions of the Hindus in his country, Hitler wanted to become the last avatar of Vishnu - Kalki. God in this incarnation was supposed to destroy all unclean things and populate the planet anew. This was Hitler's key idea - he wanted to remove unworthy; and leave people of the highest rank on the planet - the Aryans.

Is the swastika banned?

The swastika is now prohibited only in the Hitler version. I am from Kiev, and somehow I saw how opposite the building Verkhovna Rada gathered strange people in identical outfits with an image very similar to a swastika. It turns out they were fans of Hinduism. Thus, they showed that you can put up with everything, and that you need to be wiser (I communicated with them).

And you never need to blindly believe in anything! The Germans believed Hitler, and what did this lead to? Analyze, don't get fooled and be fair. No philosophy or idea is worthy of existence if it divides people.

The German swastika is the opposite of the sun symbol. It is not prohibited everywhere. I know for sure that it is still banned in Germany. In many computer games, the swastika was replaced by another symbol, especially for Germany.

In general, the swastika is a symbol of the Sun, good luck, happiness and creation. It was used at all times and by all peoples, and they probably began to prohibit it after the Nazis began to use it.

The swastika is a graphic symbol. Different peoples at different times had their own images of the swastika. The most commonly used is a 4-beam swastika. The German swastika was approved by Hitler himself as a symbol of the workers' party. She represented

Symbols were powerful weapons in the Nazi transformation of society. Neither before nor after this in history did symbols play such an important role in political life and were not used so deliberately. The national revolution, according to the Nazis, not only had to be carried out - it had to be seen.

The Nazis not only destroyed all those democratic social institutions established during the Weimar Republic, they also nullified all the external signs of democracy in the country. The National Socialists absorbed the state even more than Mussolini managed to do in Italy, and party symbols became part of the state symbols. The black-red-yellow banner of the Weimar Republic was replaced by the Nazi red-white-black with a swastika. The German national coat of arms was replaced by a new one, and the swastika took center stage.

The life of society at all levels was saturated with Nazi symbols. It was not for nothing that Hitler was interested in methods of influencing the mass consciousness. Based on the opinion of the French sociologist Gustave Le Bon that it is best to control large groups of people with the help of propaganda aimed at feelings rather than intellect, he created a gigantic propaganda apparatus that was supposed to convey to the masses the ideas of National Socialism in simple terms, understandable and emotional. Many official symbols appeared, each of which reflected a part of the Nazi ideology. The symbols worked the same way as the rest of the propaganda: uniformity, repeatability, and mass production.

The desire of the Nazis for total power over citizens was also manifested in the insignia that were to be worn by people from various spheres. Members of political organizations or administrations wore cloth patches, badges of honor, and pinned badges with symbols that were approved by Goebbels' Propaganda Ministry.

The insignia was also used to separate the "unworthy" to participate in the construction of the new Reich. Jews, for example, were stamped with the letter J (Jude, Jew) in their passports to control their entry and exit from the country. The Jews were ordered to wear stripes on their clothes - a yellow six-pointed "Star of David" with the word Jude ("Jew"). Such a system was most widespread in concentration camps, where prisoners were divided into categories and forced to wear stripes indicating their belonging to a particular group. Often the stripes were triangular, like warning road signs. Different colors of stripes corresponded to different categories of prisoners. Blacks were worn by the mentally disabled, alcoholics, lazy people, gypsies and women sent to concentration camps for so-called antisocial behavior: prostitution, lesbianism, or contraceptive use. Gay men were required to wear pink triangles, and members of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect were required to wear purple. The red color of socialism, so hated by the Nazis, was worn by "enemies of the state": political prisoners, socialists, anarchists and freemasons. Stripes could be combined. For example, a gay Jew was forced to wear a pink triangle on a yellow triangle. Together they created the two-color Star of David.

Swastika

The swastika is the most famous symbol of German National Socialism. It is one of the oldest and most common symbols in the history of mankind, which has been used in many cultures, at different times and in different parts of the world. Its origin is controversial.

The most ancient archaeological finds with the image of a swastika are rock paintings on ceramic shards found in southeastern Europe, their age is more than 7 thousand years. The swastika is found there as part of the "alphabet" that was used in the Indus Valley in the Bronze Age, that is, 2600-1900 BC. Similar finds from the Bronze and Early Iron Age were also found during excavations in the Caucasus.

Archaeologists have found the swastika not only in Europe, but also on objects found in Africa, South and North America. Most likely, in different regions this symbol was used completely independently.

The meaning of the swastika can differ depending on the culture. In ancient China, for example, the swastika meant the number 10,000 and then infinity. In Indian Jainism, it designates four levels of being. In Hinduism, the swastika, in particular, symbolized the fire god Agni and the sky god Diaus.

Its names are also numerous. In Europe, the symbol was called "four-legged", or cross gammadion, or even just gammadion. The word "swastika" itself comes from Sanskrit and can be translated as "something that brings happiness."

Swastika as an Aryan symbol

The transformation of the swastika from an ancient symbol of the sun and good luck to one of the most hated signs in the Western world began with the excavations of the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. In the 70s of the XIX century, Schliemann began excavating the ruins of ancient Troy near Hisarlik in the north of modern Turkey. In many of the finds, the archaeologist found a swastika, a symbol familiar to him from ancient pottery found during excavations in Koningswald in Germany. Therefore, Schliemann decided that he had found the missing link connecting the Germanic ancestors, Greece of the era of Homer and the mythical India, sung in the Mahabharata and Ramayana.

Schliemann consulted with an orientalist and racial theorist Emil Burnauf, who argued that the swastika was a stylized top view of the burning altar of the ancient Aryans. Since the Aryans worshiped fire, the swastika was their main religious symbol, Burnauf concluded.

The find caused a sensation in Europe, especially not long before the reunified Germany, where the ideas of Burnauf and Schliemann met with a warm response. Gradually, the swastika lost its original meaning and began to be considered an exclusively Aryan symbol. Its distribution was considered a geographical indication of exactly where the ancient "supermen" were in a particular historical period. More sober-minded scientists resisted such a simplification and pointed to cases when the swastika was found outside the region of distribution of Indo-European languages.

Gradually, the swastika began to be given more and more anti-Semitic meaning. Burnauf argued that the Jews did not accept the swastika. The Polish writer Mikael Zmigrodski published in 1889 the book Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arischen Stammes, which portrayed the Aryans as a pure race that did not mix with Jews. In the same year, at the World's Fair in Paris, Zmigrodski organized an exhibition of archaeological finds with a swastika. Two years later, the German scholar Ernst Ludwig Krause wrote the book Tuisko-Land, der arischen Stämme und Götter Urheimat, in which the swastika appeared as an apparently anti-Semitic symbol of popular nationalism.

Hitler and the swastika flag

The National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) formally adopted the swastika as its party symbol in 1920. Hitler was not yet the chairman of the party, but was responsible for propaganda issues in it. He understood that the party needed something that would distinguish it from competing groups and at the same time attract the masses.

After making several sketches of the banner, Hitler opted for the following: a black swastika in a white circle on a red background. The colors were borrowed from the old imperial banner, but expressed the dogma of National Socialism. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler then explained: “Red is a social thought in motion, white represents nationalism, and the swastika is a symbol of the struggle of the Aryans and their victory, which is thus the victory of the idea of ​​creative work, which in itself has always been anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic. "

Swastika as a national symbol

In May 1933, just a few months after Hitler came to power, a law was passed to protect "national symbols." According to this law, the swastika should not be depicted on foreign objects and the commercial use of the sign was also prohibited.

In July 1935, the German merchant ship Bremen entered the port of New York. A Nazi flag with a swastika fluttered next to the national flag of Germany. Hundreds of union and American Communist Party members gathered on the pier for an anti-Nazi rally. The demonstration escalated into riots, excited workers boarded the Bremen, tore off the swastika flag and threw it into the water. The incident led to the fact that four days later, the German ambassador to Washington demanded an official apology from the American government. The Americans refused to apologize, citing the fact that disrespect was shown not to the national flag, but only to the flag of the Nazi party.

The Nazis were able to use this incident to their advantage. Hitler called it "the humiliation of the German people." And to prevent this from happening in the future, the status of the swastika was raised to the level of a national symbol.

On September 15, 1935, the first of the so-called Nuremberg Laws came into force. It legalized the colors of the German state: red, white and black, and the swastika flag became the state flag of Germany. In November of the same year, this banner was introduced to the army. During World War II, it spread to all Nazi-occupied countries.

Swastika cult

However, in the Third Reich, the swastika was not a symbol of state power, but above all an expression of the worldview of National Socialism. During their reign, the Nazis created a cult of the swastika that resembled a religion rather than the usual political use of symbols. The grandiose mass gatherings organized by the Nazis were like religious ceremonies, in which Hitler was assigned the role of high priest. During party days in Nuremberg, for example, Hitler exclaimed from the stage "Heil!" - and hundreds of thousands of Nazis answered in chorus: "Heil, my Fuhrer"! With bated breath, the huge mass watched as huge banners with a swastika slowly unfurled to the solemn drumbeat.

This cult also included a special reverence for the banner, preserved from the time of the "beer coup" in Munich in 1923, when several Nazis were shot by the police. Legend claimed that a few drops of blood fell on the cloth. Ten years later, after coming to power, Hitler ordered the delivery of this flag from the archives of the Bavarian police. And since then, every new army standard or flag with a swastika underwent a special ceremony, during which a new banner touched this banner sprinkled with blood, which became a relic of the Nazis.

The cult of the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan race was to eventually replace Christianity. Since Nazi ideology represented the world as a struggle between races and peoples, Christianity, with its Jewish roots, was in their eyes further proof that the Aryan regions had previously been "conquered" by the Jews. Towards the end of World War II, the Nazis had developed ambitious plans to transform the German church into a "national" one. All Christian symbols were to be replaced by Nazi ones. Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg wrote that all crosses, Bibles and images of saints should be removed from churches. Instead of the Bible, the altar should be "Mein Kampf", and to the left of the altar - a sword. Crosses in all churches should be replaced by "the only invincible symbol - the swastika."

Post-war time

After World War II, the swastika in the Western world was so associated with the atrocities and crimes of Nazism that it completely overshadowed all other interpretations. Today in the West, the swastika is associated primarily with Nazism and right-wing extremism. In Asia, the swastika sign is still considered positive, although some Buddhist temples from the middle of the 20th century began to decorate only with left-handed swastikas, although signs of both directions were previously used.

National symbols

Just as the Italian fascists presented themselves as the modern heirs of the Roman Empire, the Nazis sought to prove their connection to ancient Germanic history. It was not for nothing that Hitler called the state he had conceived as the Third Reich. The first large-scale state formation was the German-Roman Empire, which existed in one form or another for almost a thousand years, from 843 to 1806. The second attempt to create a German empire, undertaken in 1871, when Bismarck united the North German lands under the rule of Prussia, failed with the defeat of Germany in the First World War.

German National Socialism, like Italian fascism, was an extreme form of nationalism. This was expressed in their borrowing signs and symbols from the early history of the Germans. These include the combination of red, white and black colors, as well as symbols that were used by the militarist power during the Prussian Empire.

Scull

The skull is one of the most common symbols in human history. It has different meanings in different cultures. In the West, the skull is traditionally associated with death, over time, with the finiteness of life. Skull drawings existed in ancient times, but became more noticeable in the 15th century: they appeared in abundance in all cemeteries and mass graves associated with the plague epidemic. In Sweden, church murals depicted death as a skeleton.

Skull associations have always been an appropriate symbol for those factions that either wanted to scare people or emphasize their own contempt for death. A well-known example is the pirates of the West Indies of the 17th and 18th centuries, who used black flags with the image of a skull, often combining it with other symbols: a sword, hourglass or bones. For the same reasons, the skull and bones were used to indicate danger in other areas. For example, in chemistry and medicine, a skull with bones on the label means the drug is poisonous and life-threatening.

The SS men wore metal badges with skulls on their headdresses. The same sign was used in the life-hussar units of the Prussian guard back in the time of Frederick the Great, in 1741. In 1809, the "Black Corps" of the Duke of Braunschweig wore a black uniform with a skull without a lower jaw.

Both of these variants - a skull and bones or a skull without a lower jaw - existed in the German army during the First World War. In the elite units, these symbols meant fighting courage and contempt for death. When in June 1916 the sapper regiment of the First Guard received the right to wear a white skull on the sleeve, the commander addressed the soldiers with the following speech: "I am convinced that this insignia of the new detachment will always be worn as a sign of contempt for death and fighting spirit."

After the war, German units that refused to recognize the Peace of Versailles chose the skull as their symbol. Some of them joined Hitler's personal bodyguard, which later became the SS. In 1934, the SS leadership officially approved the version of the skull, which is still used by neo-Nazis today. The skull was also the symbol of the SS Panzer Division "Death's Head". This division was originally recruited from concentration camp wardens. The ring with a "dead head", that is, with a skull, was also an honorary award that Himmler presented to distinguished and honored SS men.

For both the Prussian army and the soldiers of the imperial units, the skull was a symbol of blind loyalty to the commander and the willingness to follow him to death. This meaning also passed to the SS symbol. “We wear a skull on black caps as a warning to the enemy and as a sign of willingness to sacrifice our lives for the sake of the Fuhrer and his ideals,” - such a statement belongs to the SS man Alois Rosenwink.

Since the image of the skull was widely used in various fields, in our time it turned out to be the least associated with Nazi ideology as a symbol. The most famous modern Nazi organization that uses the skull in their symbolism is the British Combat 18.

iron Cross

Initially, the "Iron Cross" was the name of the military order established by the Prussian king Frederick William III in March 1813. Now both the order itself and the image of the cross on it are called so.

The "Iron Cross" of various degrees was awarded to the soldiers and officers of the four wars. First in the war of Prussia against Napoleon in 1813, then during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871, and then during the First World War. The order symbolized not only courage and honor, but was closely associated with Germanic cultural tradition. For example, during the Prussian-Austrian war of 1866, the “iron cross” was not awarded, since it was considered a war between two fraternal peoples.

With the outbreak of World War II, Hitler revived the order. A cross was added to the center and the ribbon colors were changed to black, red and white. Nevertheless, the tradition has remained to indicate the year of issue. Therefore, the Nazi versions of the Iron Cross are stamped with the year 1939. During the Second World War, approximately 3.5 million Iron Crosses were awarded. In 1957, when the wearing of Nazi symbols was banned in West Germany, war veterans were given the opportunity to surrender the orders and get back the same ones, but without the swastika.

The symbolism of the order has a long history. The Christian cross, which began to be used in ancient Rome in the 4th century BC, originally meant the salvation of mankind through the martyrdom of Christ on the cross and the resurrection of Christ. When, during the era of the Crusades in the XII and XIII centuries, Christianity was militarized, the meaning of the symbol expanded and began to cover such virtues of the crusaders as courage, loyalty and honor.

One of the many orders of knighthood that arose at that time was the Teutonic Order. In 1190, during the siege of Acre in Palestine, merchants from Bremen and Lübeck established a field hospital. Two years later, the Teutonic Order received formal status from the Pope, who endowed it with a symbol: a black cross on a white background called a cross patté. The cross is equilateral, its beams are curved and widen from the center to the ends.

Over time, the Teutonic Order grew in number and its importance increased. During the 13th and 14th century crusades to Eastern Europe, the Teutonic Knights conquered large territories in the area of ​​modern Poland and Germany. In 1525, the order was secularized, and the lands belonging to it became part of the Prussian Duchy. The black and white cross of the knights existed in Prussian heraldry until 1871, when its stylized version with straight lines of crossbeams became the symbol of the German war machine.

Thus, the iron cross, like many other symbols that were used in Nazi Germany, is not a Nazi political symbol, but a military one. Therefore, it is not banned in modern Germany, in contrast to purely fascist symbols, and is still used in the Bundeswehr army. However, neo-Nazis began to use it during their gatherings instead of the banned swastika. And instead of the banned banner of the Third Reich, they use the military flag of imperial Germany.

The iron cross is also common among biker groups. It is also found in popular subcultures, for example, among surfers. Variants of the iron cross are found in the logos of various companies.

Wolf hook

In 1910, the German writer Hermann Lons published a historical novel called Werewolf (Werewolf). The book is set in a German village during the Thirty Years' War. We are talking about the struggle of the peasant son of Garm Wolf against the legionnaires, who, like insatiable wolves, terrorize the population. The hero of the novel makes his symbol a "wolf hook" - a crossbar with two sharp hooks at the ends. The novel became extremely popular, especially in nationalist circles, because of the romantic image of the German peasants.

Lens was killed in France during the First World War. However, its popularity continued into the Third Reich. By order of Hitler in 1935, the remains of the writer were transferred and buried on German soil. The Werewolf novel was reprinted several times, and the cover often featured this sign, which was one of the state-sanctioned symbols.

After the defeat in the First World War and the collapse of the empire, the "wolfhook" became a symbol of national resistance against the policies of the victors. It was used by various nationalist groups - the Jungnationalen Bundes and the Deutschen Pfadfinderbundes, and one volunteer corps even took the name of the novel Werewolf.

The Wolfsangel sign has existed in Germany for many hundreds of years. Its origin is not entirely clear. The Nazis claim that the sign is pagan, citing its resemblance to the Old Norse rune i, but there is no evidence of this. The "Wolf Hook" was carved on buildings by members of the medieval workshop of masons, who traveled around Europe and built cathedrals back in the XIV century (from these artisans, Masons or "free masons" were then formed). Later, starting from the 17th century, the sign was included in the heraldry of many noble families and city coats of arms. According to some versions, the shape of the sign resembles a tool that was used to hang wolf carcasses after hunting, but this theory is probably based on the name of the symbol. The word Wolfsangel itself was first mentioned in the 1714 Wapenkunst heraldic dictionary, but it denotes a completely different symbol.

Different versions of the symbol were used by young "wolf cubs" from the Hitler Youth and in the military apparatus. The most famous examples of the use of this symbol: wolf hook patches were worn by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, the 8th Panzer Regiment, the 4th SS Motorized Infantry Division, and the Dutch SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland. In Sweden this symbol was used in the 1930s by the youth wing of the Lindholm movement "Youth of the North" (Nordisk Ungdom).

At the end of World War II, the Nazi regime began to create a kind of partisan group that had to fight the enemy who entered German soil. Influenced by Löns' novels, these groups also began to be called "Werewolf", and in 1945 the "wolf hook" became their distinctive sign. Some of these groups continued to fight against the Allied troops after the surrender of Germany, for which today's neo-Nazis began to mythologize them.

The Wolfhook can also be drawn vertically, with points pointing up and down. In this case, the symbol is called Donnerkeil - "lightning".

Working class symbols

Before Hitler got rid of the socialist faction of the NSDAP during the "Night of Long Knives", the party also used the symbols of the labor movement - primarily in the SA assault detachments. In particular, like the Italian fascist militants a decade earlier, in the early 1930s, the revolutionary black banner was encountered in Germany. Sometimes it was completely black, sometimes it was combined with symbols such as a swastika, a "wolf's hook" or a skull. Nowadays, black banners are found almost exclusively among anarchists.

Hammer and sword

In the Weimar Republic of the 1920s, there were political groups that tried to combine socialist ideas with the Völkische ideology. This was reflected in attempts to create symbols that combined elements of these two ideologies. The most common among them were the hammer and the sword.

The hammer was drawn from the symbolism of the developing labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The symbols that celebrated the workers were taken from a set of common tools. The most famous were, of course, the hammer and sickle, which in 1922 were adopted as symbols of the newly formed Soviet Union.

The sword has traditionally served as a symbol of struggle and power, and in many cultures it was also an integral part of various gods of war, for example, the god Mars in Roman mythology. In National Socialism, the sword became a symbol of the struggle for the purity of a nation or race and existed in many variations.

In the symbol of the sword was laid the idea of ​​the future "unity of the people", which the workers and soldiers were to achieve after the revolution. For several months in 1924, the left-wing radical and later nationalist Sepp Erter published a newspaper called Hammer and Sword, whose logo used the symbol of two crossed hammers intersecting with a sword.

And in Hitler's NSDAP there were leftist movements - primarily represented by the brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser. The Strasser brothers published books at the Rhine-Ruhr and Kampf publishing houses. Both firms used a hammer and a sword as their emblems. The symbol was also found in the early stages of the existence of the Hitler Youth, before Hitler dealt with all socialist elements in the Nazi movement in 1934.

Gear

Most of the symbols used in the Third Reich have existed in one form or another for hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. But the gear refers to much later symbols. It began to be used only after the industrial revolution of the 18th and 18th centuries. The symbol denoted technology in general, technical progress and mobility. Due to its direct connection with industrial development, the gear has become a symbol of factory workers.

The first in Nazi Germany to use the gear as its symbol was the Technical Department (Technische Nothilfe, TENO, TENO), founded in 1919. This organization, where the letter T in the shape of a hammer and the letter N were placed inside the gear, provided technical support to various right-wing extremist groups. TENO was responsible for the operation and protection of important industries such as water supply and gas. Over time, TENO joined the German war machine and became directly subordinate to Himmler.

After Hitler came to power in 1933, all trade unions were banned in the country. Instead of trade unions, the workers were united in the German Labor Front (DAF, DAF). The same gear was chosen as a symbol, but with a swastika inside, and the workers were obliged to wear these badges on their clothes. Similar badges, a gear with an eagle, were awarded to aviation maintenance workers - the Luftwaffe.

The gear itself is not a Nazi symbol. It is used by workers' organizations from different countries - both socialist and non-socialist. Among the skinhead movement dating back to the British labor movement of the 1960s, it is also a common symbol.

Modern neo-Nazis use the gear when they want to emphasize their working origins and oppose themselves to the "cuffs", that is, the slickness of employees. In order not to be confused with the left, neo-Nazis combine the gear with purely fascist, right-wing radical symbols.

Hammerskins, an international skinhead organization, is a prime example. In the center of the gear, they place the numbers 88 or 14, which are used exclusively in Nazi circles.

Symbols of the ancient Germans

Many of the Nazi symbols were borrowed from the occult neo-pagan movement that existed in the form of anti-Semitic sects even before the formation of the Nazi parties in Germany and Austria. In addition to the swastika, this symbolism included signs from the pre-Christian era of the history of the ancient Germans, such as "irminsul" and "hammer of the god Thor".

Irminsul

In the pre-Christian era, many pagans had a tree or pillar in the center of the village around which religious rites were performed. The ancient Germans called such a pillar "Irminsul". This word consists of the name of the ancient German god Irmin and the word "sul", which means a pillar. In northern Europe, the name Jörmun, consonant with "Irmin", was one of the names of the god Odin, and many scholars suggest that the Germanic "Irminsul" is associated with the Yggdrasil World Tree in Old Norse mythology.

In 772, Christian Charlemagne razed the cult center of the pagans in the sacred grove of Externstein in present-day Saxony to the ground. In the 20s of the XX century, at the suggestion of the German Wilhelm Teudt, a theory arose that the most important Irminsul of the ancient Germans was located there. A relief carved in stone by monks of the 12th century was cited as evidence. The relief shows the Irminsul, bent under the image of Saint Nicodemus and the cross - a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism.

In 1928, Toidt founded the Society for the Study of Ancient German History, the symbol of which was the "straightened" Irminsul from the relief in Externstein. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Society fell into the sphere of interests of Himmler, and in 1940 it became part of the German Society for the Study of Ancient German History and Ancestral Heritage (Ahnenerbe).

The Ahnenerbe, founded by Himmler in 1935, studied the history of the Germanic tribes, but research results that did not fit into the National Socialist doctrine of race purity could not be published. Irminsul became the symbol of Ahnenerbe, and many employees of the institute wore small silver jewelry that reproduced the relief image. This sign is still used by neo-Nazis and neo-pagans to this day.

Runes

The Nazis considered the Third Reich a direct successor of the ancient German culture, and it was important for them to prove the right to be called the heirs of the Aryans. In pursuit of evidence, their attention was drawn to the runes.

Runes are writing signs of the pre-Christian era of the peoples inhabiting the north of Europe. Just as the letters of the Latin alphabet correspond to sounds, each runic sign corresponds to a specific sound. Runic scripts of different variants have survived, carved on stones at different times and in different regions. It is assumed that each rune, like each letter of the alphabet, had its own name. However, everything that we know about runic writing was obtained not from primary sources, but from later medieval records and even later Gothic script, therefore it is not known whether this information is correct.

One of the problems for Nazi studies of runic signs was that there are not too many such stones in Germany itself. The research was mainly based on the study of stones with runic inscriptions found in the European North, most often in Scandinavia. Scientists, supported by the Nazis, found a way out: they argued that the half-timbered buildings widespread in Germany with their wooden posts and braces, giving the building a decorative and expressive look, repeat the way of writing runes. The implication was that in this "architectural and construction method" the people allegedly kept the secret of the runic inscriptions. This trick led to the discovery in Germany of a huge number of "runes", the meaning of which could be interpreted in the most fantastic way. However, beams or logs in half-timbered structures, of course, cannot be "read" as text. The Nazis solved this problem as well. Without any reason, it was announced that each individual rune in ancient times had some hidden meaning, "image", which could only be read and understood by initiates.

Serious researchers who studied runes only as a written language lost their subsidies as they became "renegades", apostates from Nazi ideology. At the same time, quasi-scientists who adhered to the theory sanctioned from above received significant funds at their disposal. As a result, almost all research work was aimed at finding evidence of the Nazi view of history and, in particular, on the search for the ritual meaning of the runic signs. In 1942, the runes became the official holiday symbols of the Third Reich.

Guido von List

The main representative of these ideas was the Austrian Guido von List. An adherent of the occult, he devoted half his life to the revival of the "Aryan-German" past and was at the beginning of the 20th century a central figure among anti-Semitic societies and associations engaged in astrology, theosophy and other occult activities.

Von List was engaged in what in occult circles was called "medium writing": with the help of meditation he plunged into a trance and in this state "saw" fragments of ancient German history. Coming out of his trance, he wrote down his "visions." Von List argued that the belief of the Germanic tribes was a kind of mystical "natural religion" - Wotanism, which was served by a special caste of priests - "Armanns". In his opinion, these priests used runic signs as magical symbols.

Further, the "medium" described the Christianization of Northern Europe and the expulsion of the Armans, who were forced to hide their faith. However, their knowledge did not disappear, and the secrets of runic signs were preserved by the German people for centuries. With the help of his "supernatural" abilities, von List was able to find and "read" these hidden symbols everywhere: from the names of German settlements, coats of arms, Gothic architecture and even the names of different types of pastries.

After an ophthalmic operation in 1902, von List saw nothing for eleven months. It was at this time that the most powerful visions visited him, and he created his own "alphabet" or runic series of 18 characters. In this series, which had nothing in common with the scientifically accepted, runes from different times and localities were included. But, despite his anti-scientific nature, he strongly influenced the perception of runic signs not only by Germans in general, but also by Nazi "scientists" who were studying runes in the Ahnenerbe.

The magical meaning that von List attributed to runic letters is used by the Nazis from the time of the Third Reich to the present day.

Rune of life

"Rune of life" - the Nazi name of the fifteenth in the Old Norse series and the fourteenth in the series of Viking runes of the rune sign. The ancient Scandinavians called the sign "mannar" and meant a man or a person.

For the Nazis, it meant life and was always used when it came to health, family life or the birth of children. Therefore, the "rune of life" became the emblem of the women's branch of the NSDAP and other women's associations. In combination with a cross inscribed in a circle and an eagle, this sign was the emblem of the Union of German Families, and together with the letter A, the symbol of pharmacies. This rune replaced the Christian star in newspaper birth announcements and birth dates on headstones.

The "Rune of Life" was widely used on stripes, which were awarded for achievements in various organizations. For example, girls in the Health Service wore this emblem as an oval patch with a red rune on a white background. The same sign was given to members of the Hitler Youth who received medical training. All physicians initially used the international symbol of healing: the snake and the cup. However, in the desire of the Nazis to reform society down to the smallest detail in 1938, this sign was also replaced. The "Rune of Life", but on a black background, could also be received by the SS.

Rune of death

This rune sign, the sixteenth in a series of Viking runes, became known among the Nazis as the "rune of death." The symbol was used to glorify the killed SS men. It replaced the Christian cross in newspaper obituaries and death announcements. He began to be depicted on gravestones instead of a cross. They also put it on the places of mass graves on the fronts of the Second World War.

This sign was also used by Swedish right-wing extremists in the 1930s and 1940s. For example, the "rune of death" is printed in the death announcement of a certain Hans Linden, who fought on the side of the Nazis and was killed on the Eastern Front in 1942.

Modern neo-Nazis naturally follow the traditions of Hitlerite Germany. In 1994, an obituary to the death of the fascist Per Engdahl was published under this rune in a Swedish newspaper called "The Torch of Freedom". A year later, an obituary to the death of Eskil Ivarsson, who in the 1930s was an active member of the Swedish fascist party of Lindholm, was published under this symbol in the newspaper Walhall and the Future, which was published by the Western Swedish Nazi movement NS Gothenburg. The 21st century Nazi organization "Salem Foundation" still sells stripes with images of the "rune of life", "rune of death" and a torch in Stockholm.

Rune Hagal

The rune, meaning the sound "x" ("h"), looked different in the ancient runic series and in the newer Scandinavian. The Nazis used both signs. Hagal is an old form of Swedish hagel, which means hail.

The Hagal rune was a popular symbol of the Völkishe movement. Guido von List put into this sign a deep symbolic meaning - the connection of man with the eternal laws of nature. In his opinion, the sign called upon a person "to embrace the Universe in order to master it." This meaning was borrowed by the Third Reich, where the Hagal rune personified absolute belief in Nazi ideology. In addition, an anti-Semitic magazine called Hagal was published.

The rune was used by the SS Panzer Division "Hohenstaufen" on flags and badges. In the Scandinavian form, the rune was depicted on a high award - the SS ring, and also accompanied the SS weddings.

In our time, the rune was used by the Swedish party "Hembyugd", the right-wing extremist group "Heimdal" and a small Nazi group "People's Socialists".

Rune Odal

Rune Odal is the last, 24th rune of the Old Norse series of runic signs. Its sound corresponds to the pronunciation of the Latin letter O, and the shape goes back to the letter "omega" of the Greek alphabet. The name is derived from the name of the corresponding sign in the Gothic alphabet, which resembles the Old Norse "property, land". This is one of the most common signs in Nazi symbols.

Nationalist romanticism of the 19th century idealized the simple and close to nature life of the peasants, emphasizing the love for the native village and the homeland in general. The Nazis continued this romantic line, and the Odal rune gained special significance in their ideology of "blood and soil".

The Nazis believed that there was a mystical connection between the people and the land where they lived. This idea was formulated and developed in two books written by SS member Walter Darre.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Darre was appointed Minister of Agriculture. Two years earlier, he headed the SS subdivision, which in 1935 became the state Central Office for Race and Resettlement Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA), whose task was to put into practice the main idea of ​​Nazism on racial purity. In particular, in this institution they checked for the purity of the race of SS members and their future wives, here they determined which children in the occupied territories were "Aryan" enough to kidnap them and take them to Germany, here they decided which of the "non-Aryans" should be killed after sexual relations with a German or a German woman. The Odal rune was the symbol of this department.

Odal was worn on collars by soldiers of the SS Mountain Volunteer Division, where both volunteers were recruited and taken by force "ethnic Germans" from the Balkan Peninsula and from Romania. During the Second World War, this division operated in Croatia.

Runa Zig

Runa Zig was considered by the Nazis as a sign of strength and victory. The ancient Germanic name for the rune was sowlio, which means "sun". The Anglo-Saxon name for the rune sigel also means "sun", but Guido von List mistakenly associated this word with the German word for "victory" - "sig" (Sieg). From this error arose the meaning of the rune, which still exists among neo-Nazis.

"Zig-rune", as it is called, is one of the most famous signs in the symbolism of Nazism. First of all, because this double sign was worn on the collars of the SS. In 1933, the first such patches, developed in the early 1930s by SS man Walter Heck, were sold by Ferdinand Hoffstatter's textile mill to SS units at a price of 2.50 Reichsmarks apiece. The honor of wearing a double "zig-rune" on the collars of the uniform was first awarded to a part of Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguards.

They wore a double "zig-rune" in combination with the image of the key and in the SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" formed in 1943, which recruited youth from the organization of the same name. The single "zig-rune" was the emblem of the Jungfolk organization, which taught the basics of Nazi ideology to children from 10 to 14 years old.

Rune Tyr

Runa Tyr is another sign that was borrowed by the Nazis from the pre-Christian era. The rune is pronounced as the letter T and also denotes the name of the god Tyr.

The god Tyr was considered traditionally as the god of war, therefore, the rune symbolized struggle, battle and victory. Graduates of the officers' school wore a bandage with the image of this sign on their left hand. The symbol was also used by the January 30 Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division.

A special cult around this rune was created in the Hitler Youth, where all activities were aimed at individual and group rivalry. The Tyr rune reflected this spirit - and the meetings of the Hitler Youth members adorned the colossal Tyr runes. In 1937, the so-called "Adolf Hitler Schools" were created, where the most capable students were trained for important positions in the administration of the Third Reich. Pupils of these schools wore the double "Tyr rune" as an emblem.

In Sweden in the 1930s, this symbol was used by the Youth of the North, a division of the Swedish Nazi Party NSAP (NSAP).

The meaning of the swastika

Today the swastika - symbol, which everyone associates only with evil and war. The swastika is falsely credited with a connection with fascism. This symbol has nothing to do with fascism, war, or Hitler, and this is a delusion of many people!

The origin of the swastika

The swastika symbol is tens of thousands of years old. Initially swastika meant our galaxy, because if you look at the rotation of the galaxy, you can see a connection with the "swastika" sign. This association served as the beginning for the further use of the swastika sign. The Slavs used the swastika as amulets, decorated houses and temples with this sign, applied it as an ornament on clothes and weapons. For them, this sign was a symbolic image of the sun. And for our ancestors, he represented all the brightest and purest in the world. And not only for the Slavs, for many cultures it meant peace, goodness and faith. So how did it happen that such a good sign, carrying a thousand-year history, suddenly became the personification of everything bad and terrible in the world?

In the Middle Ages, the symbol was forgotten, and only occasionally surfaced in patterns.
It was only in the 1920s that the swastika "saw" the world again. Then the swastika began to be depicted on the helmets of militants, and the very next year it was officially recognized as the coat of arms of the fascist party. And later, Hitler performed under the banners with the image of the swastika.

What is a swastika

But here you need to clarify and dot all the i. The swastika is a two-digit symbol, because can be depicted as curved clockwise ends and against. And both of these images carry a completely opposite semantic load, balancing each other. Swastika, the rays of which are directed to the left (i.e. counterclockwise) denotes the rising sun, goodness and light. The swastika, which is depicted clockwise, carries the opposite meaning and means evil, misfortune and misfortune. Now let's remember which swastika was Hitler's emblem. It is the last one. And this swastika has nothing to do with the ancient symbols of goodness and light.

Therefore, there is no need to confuse these two symbols. Even now, the swastika can serve as a talisman for you, if you draw it correctly. And people who round their eyes with fright at the sight of this symbol need to make an excursion into history and tell about the ancient symbol of our ancestors, which made the world kinder and brighter.

As a separate symbol, the swastika has many meanings, and they are positive among a large number of peoples. So, for the ancient tribes, it had the meaning of movement, creation, light, Sun, luck, happiness, life and prosperity. Embodying rotational movements converted into translational ones, it symbolizes philosophical specificity.
The swastika, as one of the most ancient and archaic signs, indicates the apparent activity of the Sun, its rotation around the Earth, thanks to which the earth's year is divided into four parts - climatic seasons. The symbol also characterizes the winter and summer solstices in the Sun's annual movement. In addition to solar symbolism, the swastika has the meaning of the fertility of the earth, carrying the idea of ​​four parts of the world, centered around its axis. It also assumes a two-way movement clockwise and counterclockwise, symbolizing the masculine and feminine principles of Yin and Yang, respectively. In the scriptures of ancient India, a distinction is made between male and female energy, there are images of deities personified from two male and two female swastikas.
In general, despite the popular and ubiquitous use of the swastika in art and painting, and its ancient and long-lasting heritage in many cultures, after the association of Nazi Germany with it, the swastika began to have a negative meaning and its use was considered synonymous with imitation of Nazism. Unfortunately, many other symbols, such as runes, also took on a negative connotation after the end of World War II.
History knows a large number of similar fascist movements, which appeared mainly in the period between the two horrific wars of the twentieth century, as well as the very diverse symbolism of the Nazi movement. National Coats of Arms were used as symbols, as a sign of the unity of the nation, as well as various figures of historical significance. Some Nazi organizations symbolically used armed salute.
The acceptance and widespread wearing of symbols created by totalitarian fascist governments was considered one of the key aspects of Nazi propaganda.
In the understanding of Hitler himself, she accurately personified the triumph of his struggle for the superiority of the Aryan race over all the nations of the world. This choice combined both mystical and occult meaning, the meaning of the swastika was formed as a symbol of the Ancient Aryan race. In addition, its already established use by extreme right-wing political forces - it was used by some Austrian radical parties, it was also used during the Kapp putsch, not without the influence of the Baltic countries - served a good propaganda role. But already in the twenties, the swastika was directly associated with Nazism, and after the thirties it was perceived mainly as a Nazi symbol, the result was a complete ban on the image of the swastika in some countries, and it was also excluded from the emblems of the child scout movement.
The German Nazis borrowed from the Italian fascists the entertainment, the use of rituals and saluting. Nazism differed from fascism in a pronounced racist vector, therefore Hitlerite Germany used the swastika as a symbol of the Aryan race in order to confirm its superiority. The Third Reich used a specific version of the swastika - a twenty-gon inscribed in a square rotated at an angle of 45 degrees, with rays directed clockwise and bent at right angles. Basically, he was depicted in black, against a background of a white or red circle, sometimes on any other background (for example, on a camouflage). Also, this swastika was located on the state German flag, as well as on the emblems of state and military organizations of the country. The blue swastika was used by the pro-German regime of Finland, a similar sign, but in red, was used as an identification symbol of the Latvian air force in the pre-war period. Moreover, it is known that some parts of the Red Army during the civil war used this particular type of swastika on stripes and banners even before the adoption of the Red Star as a national symbol.