Swastika: solar symbol. Why did Adolf Hitler make the swastika the symbol of National Socialism?

Half a century has passed since the end of the Second World War, but until now, the two letters SS (more precisely, of course, SS), for the majority, are synonymous with horror and terror. Thanks to the mass production of Hollywood and the Soviet film factories trying to keep up with it, almost all of us are familiar with the uniforms of the SS men and their death-head emblem. But the actual history of the SS is much more complex and multifaceted. In it one can find heroism and cruelty, nobility and meanness, selflessness and intrigue, deep scientific interests and a passionate craving for the ancient knowledge of distant ancestors.

The head of the SS Himmler, who sincerely believed that the Saxon king Henry I "Birdcatcher" was spiritually reincarnated in him - the founder of the First Reich, elected in 919 the king of all Germans. In one of his speeches in 1943 he said:

"Our order will enter the future as a union of an elite that unites the German people and all of Europe around itself. It will give the world leaders of industry, agriculture, as well as political and spiritual leaders. We will always obey the law of elitism, choosing the highest and discarding the lowest. If we If we cease to follow this fundamental rule, then we will thereby condemn ourselves to and disappear from the face of the earth like any other human organization.

His dreams, as you know, were not destined to come true for completely different reasons. From a young age, Himmler showed an increased interest in "the ancient heritage of our ancestors." Associated with the Thule Society, he was fascinated by the pagan culture of the Germans and dreamed of its revival - of the time when it would replace the "stinking Christianity." In the intellectual depths of the SS there was a development of a new "moral" based on pagan ideas.

Himmler considered himself the founder of a new pagan order, which was "destined to change the course of history", carry out "purification of the rubbish accumulated over the millennia" and return humanity to "the path prepared by Providence." In connection with such grandiose plans for a "return", it is not surprising that the ancient one was widely used on the SS order. On the uniforms of the SS men, they stood out, testifying to the elitism and camaraderie that prevails in the organization. From 1939 they went to war singing a hymn that included the following line: "We are all ready for battle, we are inspired by runes and a dead head."

According to the plan of the Reichsführer SS, the runes were to play a special role in the symbols of the SS: on his personal initiative, the Institute of Runic Writing was established as part of the Ahnenerbe program - the Society for the Study and Dissemination of the Cultural Heritage of Ancestors. Until 1940, all recruits of the SS order underwent mandatory instruction regarding runic symbolism. By 1945, 14 basic runic symbols were used in the SS. The word "rune" means "secret script". Runes are the basis of the alphabets carved on stone, metal and bone, and which became widespread mainly in pre-Christian Northern Europe among the ancient Germanic tribes.

"... The great gods - Odin, Ve and Willy carved a man from ash, and a woman from willow. The eldest of the children of Bor, Odin, breathed soul into people and gave life. To bestow them with new knowledge, Odin went to Utgard, the Land of Evil ", to the World Tree. There he pulled out an eye and brought it to, but this seemed not enough to the Guardians of the Tree. Then he gave his life - he decided to die in order to resurrect. For nine days he hung on a branch pierced by a spear. Each of the eight nights of Initiation opened him new secrets of being. On the ninth morning, Odin saw runes-letters inscribed on a stone. His mother's father, the giant Belthorn, taught him to carve and color runes, and the World Tree became known from then on - Yggdrasil ... "

So tells about the acquisition of runes by the ancient Germans "Snorrieva Edda" (1222-1225), perhaps the only complete review of the heroic epic of the ancient Germans, based on legends, divination, spells, sayings, cult and rituals of the Germanic tribes. In the Edda, Odin was revered as the god of war and the patron of the dead heroes of Valhalla. He was also considered a necromancer.

The famous Roman historian Tacitus in his book "Germany" (98 BC) described in detail how the Germans were engaged in predicting the future with the help of runes.

Each rune had a name and a magical meaning that went beyond purely linguistic boundaries. The inscription and composition changed over time and acquired magical significance in Teutonic astrology. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the runes were remembered by various "folkische" (folk) groups spread in Northern Europe. Among them was the Thule Society, which played a significant role in the early days of the Nazi movement.

Hakenkreutz

SWASTIKA - the Sanskrit name of the sign depicting a hook cross (among the ancient Greeks, this sign, which became known to them from the peoples of Asia Minor, was called "tetraskele" - "four-legged", "spider"). This sign was associated with the cult of the Sun among many peoples and is found already in the Upper Paleolithic era and even more often in the Neolithic era, primarily in Asia (according to other sources, the oldest image of the swastika was found in Transylvania, it dates from the Late Stone Age; the swastika found in the ruins of the legendary Troy, this is the Bronze Age). Already from the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. it enters into symbolism, where it means the secret doctrine of the Buddha. The swastika is reproduced on the oldest coins of India and Iran (before our era it penetrates from there to); in Central America it is also known among the peoples as a sign indicating the cycle of the Sun. In Europe, the distribution of this sign dates back to a relatively late time - to the Bronze and Iron Ages. In the era of the migration of peoples, he penetrates through the Finno-Ugric tribes to the north of Europe, to Scandinavia and the Baltic, and becomes one of the supreme Scandinavian god Odin (Wotan in German mythology), who suppressed and absorbed the previous solar (solar) cults. Thus, the swastika, as one of the varieties of the image of the solar circle, was practically found in all parts of the world, as the solar sign served as an indication of the direction of rotation of the Sun (from left to right) and was also used as a sign of well-being, “turning away from the left side”.

It is precisely because of this that the ancient Greeks, who learned about this sign from the peoples of Asia Minor, changed the turn of their “spider” to the left and at the same time changed its meaning, turning it into a sign of evil, sunset, death, since for them it was “alien” . Since the Middle Ages, the swastika has been completely forgotten and only occasionally met as a purely ornamental motif without any meaning and significance.

Only at the very end of the 19th century, probably on the basis of the erroneous and hasty conclusion of some German archaeologists and ethnographers that the swastika sign can be an indicator for determining the Aryan peoples, since it is supposedly found only among them, in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century they began to use the swastika as anti-Semitic sign (for the first time in 1910), although later, at the end of the 20s, the works of English and Danish archaeologists were published, who discovered the swastika not only in the territories inhabited by Semitic peoples (in Mesopotamia and Palestine), but also directly on the Hebrew sarcophagi.

For the first time as a political sign-symbol, the swastika was used on March 10-13, 1920 on the helmets of the militants of the so-called “Erhard Brigade”, which formed the core of the “Volunteer Corps” - a monarchist paramilitary organization led by Generals Ludendorff, Seeckt and Lutzow, who carried out the Kapp putsch - counter-revolutionary the coup that planted the landowner V. Kapp as “premier” in Berlin. Although Bauer's Social Democratic government fled ignominiously, the Kapp Putsch was liquidated in five days by the 100,000-strong German Army created under the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany. The authority of the militaristic circles was then severely undermined, and the sign of the swastika from that time began to mean a sign of right-wing extremism. Since 1923, on the eve of Hitler's "beer putsch" in Munich, the swastika has become the official emblem of the Nazi fascist party, and since September 1935 - the main state emblem of Nazi Germany, included in its coat of arms and flag, as well as in the emblem of the Wehrmacht - an eagle holding in its claws wreath with swastika.

Under the definition of "Nazi" symbols, only a swastika standing on an edge at 45 °, with the ends directed to the right, can fit. It was this sign that was on the state banner of National Socialist Germany from 1933 to 1945, as well as on the emblems of the civil and military services of this country. It is also desirable to call it not "swastika", but Hakenkreuz, as the Nazis themselves did. The most accurate reference books consistently distinguish between the Hakenkreuz ("Nazi swastika") and the traditional swastikas in Asia and America, which stand on the surface at an angle of 90°.

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Symbols of the Third Reich

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Half a century has passed since the end of the Second World War, but until now, the two letters SS (more precisely, of course, SS), for the majority, are synonymous with horror and terror. Thanks to the mass production of Hollywood and the Soviet film factories trying to keep up with it, almost all of us are familiar with the black uniforms of the SS men and their death-head emblem. But the actual history of the SS is much...

The four-beam swastika is a hexagon, with axial symmetry of the 4th order. The correct -beam swastika is described by a point symmetry group (Schoenflies symbolism). This group is generated by rotation of the -th order and reflection in a plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation - the so-called "horizontal" plane in which the pattern lies. Due to the operation of reflecting the swastika achiral and does not have enantiomer(that is, a "double" obtained by reflection, which cannot be combined with the original figure by any rotation). As a result, in oriented space, right- and left-handed swastikas do not differ. The right- and left-handed swastikas differ only on the plane, where the pattern has purely rotational symmetry. For even, an inversion appears, where is a rotation of the 2nd order.

You can build a swastika for anyone; when you get a figure similar to the sign of the integral. For example, the symbol borjgali(see below) is a swastika with . A swastika-like figure will generally be obtained if we take any area on the plane and multiply it by rotating it times about the vertical axis , which does not lie in the vertical plane of symmetry of the area .

Origin and meaning

Illustration from ESBE.

The word "swastika" is a compound of two Sanskrit roots: सु, su, "good, good" and अस्ति, asti, "life, existence", that is, "well-being" or "well-being". There is another name for the swastika - "gammadion" (Greek. γαμμάδιον ), since the Greeks saw in the swastika a combination of four letters "gamma" (Γ).

The swastika is a symbol of the Sun, good luck, happiness and creation. In Western European medieval literature, the name of the sun god of the ancient Prussians Swiikstiks(Svaixtix) is first found in Latin-language monuments - the beginning of the 17th century: "Sudauer Buchlein"(mid-15th century), "Episcoporum Prussiae Pomesaniensis atque Sambiensis Constitutiones Synodales" (1530), "De Sacrificiis et Idolatria Veterum Borvssorvm Livonum, aliarumque uicinarum gentium" (1563), "De Diis Samagitarum" (1615) .

The swastika is one of the ancient and archaic solar signs - an indicator of the apparent movement of the Sun around the Earth and the division of the year into four parts - four seasons. The sign fixes two solstices: summer and winter - and the annual movement of the Sun.

Nevertheless, the swastika is considered not only as a solar symbol, but also as a symbol of the fertility of the earth. It has the idea of ​​four cardinal points, centered around an axis. The swastika also suggests the idea of ​​movement in two directions: clockwise and counterclockwise. Like "Yin" and "Yang", a dual sign: rotating clockwise symbolizes male energy, counterclockwise - female. In ancient Indian scriptures, male and female swastikas are distinguished, which depicts two female, as well as two male deities.

About the meaning of the swastika, the Encyclopedia of Brockhaus F. A. and Efron I. A. writes as follows:

The swastika is "correct" and reverse. Accordingly, the swastika of the opposite direction symbolizes darkness, destruction. In ancient times, both swastikas were used simultaneously. This has a deep meaning: day replaces night, light replaces darkness, new birth replaces death - and this is the natural order of things in the Universe. Therefore, in ancient times there were no "bad" and "good" swastikas - they were perceived in unity.

One of the oldest forms of the swastika is Asia Minor and is an ideogram of the four cardinal points in the form of a figure with four cross-shaped curls. The swastika was understood as a symbol of the four main forces, the four cardinal points, the elements, the seasons, and the alchemical idea of ​​the transformation of the elements.

Use in religion

In many religions, the swastika is an important religious symbol.

Buddhism

Other religions

Widely used by Jains and followers of Vishnu. In Jainism, the four arms of the swastika represent the four levels of existence.

Usage in history

The swastika is a sacred symbol and is found already in the Upper Paleolithic period. The symbol is found in the culture of many nations. Ukraine, Egypt, Iran, India, China, Maverannahr, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, the Mayan state in Central America - this is the incomplete geography of this symbol. The swastika is presented in oriental ornaments, on monumental buildings and household utensils, on various amulets and Orthodox icons.

In the ancient world

The swastika was found on clay vessels from Samarra (the territory of modern Iraq), which date back to the 5th millennium BC, and in ornaments on ceramics of the South Ural Andronovo culture. The left- and right-handed swastika is found in the pre-Aryan culture of Mohenjo-Daro (Indus River basin) and ancient China around 2000 BC.

One of the oldest forms of the swastika is Asia Minor and is an ideogram of the four cardinal points in the form of a figure with four cross-shaped curls. Back in the 7th century BC, images similar to the swastika were known in Asia Minor, consisting of four cross-shaped scrolls - rounded ends are signs of cyclic movement. There are interesting coincidences in the image of Indian and Asia Minor swastikas (dots between the branches of the swastika, jagged thickenings at the ends). Other early forms of the swastika - a square with four plant-like roundings along the edges - are a sign of the earth, also of Asia Minor origin.

In Northeast Africa, a stele of the kingdom of Meroe was discovered, which existed in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. e. The fresco on the stele depicts a woman entering the afterlife, and a swastika also flaunts on the clothes of the deceased. The rotating cross also adorns the golden weights for scales that belonged to the inhabitants of Ashanta (Ghana), and the clay utensils of the ancient Indians, and the carpets of the Persians. The swastika is often found on the charms of the Slavs, Germans, Pomors, Curonians, Scythians, Sarmatians, Mordovians, Udmurts, Bashkirs, Chuvashs and many other peoples. The swastika is found wherever there are traces of Buddhist culture.

In China, the swastika is used as a sign of all the deities worshiped in the Lotus School, as well as in Tibet and Siam. In ancient Chinese manuscripts, it included such concepts as "region", "country". Known in the form of a swastika are two curved mutually truncated fragments of a double helix, expressing the symbolism of the relationship "Yin" and "Yang". In maritime civilizations, the double helix motif was an expression of the relationship between opposites, a sign of the Upper and Lower Waters, and also meant the process of becoming life. On one of the Buddhist swastikas, each blade of the cross ends in a triangle indicating the direction of movement and crowned with an arch of a flawed moon, in which, like in a boat, the sun is placed. This sign represents the sign of the mystical arba, the creative quaternary, also called Thor's hammer. A similar cross was found by Schliemann during the excavations of Troy.

The swastika was depicted in pre-Christian Roman mosaics and on the coins of Cyprus and Crete. An ancient Cretan rounded swastika made of plant elements is known. The Maltese cross in the form of a swastika of four triangles converging in the center is of Phoenician origin. It was also known to the Etruscans. According to A. Ossendovsky, Genghis Khan wore a ring on his right hand with the image of a swastika, into which a ruby ​​was set. Ossendovsky saw this ring on the hand of the Mongol governor. At present, this magical symbol is known mainly in India and Central and East Asia.

Swastika in India

Swastika in Russia (and on its territory)

Various types of swastikas (3-beam, 4-beam, 8-beam) are present on the ceramic ornament of the Andronovo archaeological culture (Southern Urals of the Bronze Age).

The rhombus-meander swastika ornament in the Kostenkovskaya and Mezinskaya cultures (25-20 thousand years BC) was studied by V. A. Gorodtsov. So far, there is no reliable data on where the swastika was first used, but its earliest image was not registered in Rus'.

The swastika was used in rituals and construction, in homespun production: in embroideries on clothes, on carpets. The swastika was used to decorate household utensils. She was also present on the icons. Embroidered on clothes, the swastika could have a certain protective meaning.

The swastika symbol was used as a personal sign and a talisman symbol by Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Images of the swastika are found on hand-drawn postcards of the Empress. One of the first such "signs" was placed by the Empress after the signature "A." on a Christmas card drawn by her, sent on December 5, 1917 from Tobolsk to her friend Yu. A. Den.

The swastika was depicted on some banknotes of the Provisional Government of 1917 and on some Soviet signs printed with the cliché "Kerenok", which were in circulation from 1918 to 1922. .

In November 1919, the commander of the South-Eastern Front of the Red Army, V.I. Shorin, was issued, which approved the distinctive sleeve insignia of the Kalmyk formations using the swastika. The swastika in the order is indicated by the word "lyungtn", that is, the Buddhist "Lungta", meaning - "whirlwind", "vital energy".

Also, the image of the swastika can be seen on some historical monuments in Chechnya, in particular on ancient crypts in the Itum-Kalinsky district of Chechnya (the so-called "City of the Dead"). In the pre-Islamic period, the swastika was a symbol of the sun god among pagan Chechens (Dela-Malkh).

The swastika and censorship in the USSR

On the territory of modern Israel, images of the swastika were discovered during excavations in the mosaics of ancient synagogues. Thus, the synagogue on the site of the ancient settlement of Ein Gedi in the Dead Sea region dates back to the beginning of the 2nd century, and the synagogue on the site of the modern kibbutz Maoz Chaim on the Golan Heights operated between the 4th and 11th centuries.

In North, Central and South America, the swastika is found in Maya and Aztec art. In North America, the Navajo, Tennessee, and Ohio tribes used the swastika symbol in ritual burials.

Thai greeting Swatdi! comes from the word svatdika(swastika).

The swastika as the emblem of the Nazi organizations

Nevertheless, I was forced to reject all the countless designs sent to me from all over by young supporters of the movement, since all these projects boiled down to only one theme: they took the old colors and on this background drew a hoe-shaped cross in various variations. […] After a series of experiments and alterations, I myself drew up a completed project: the main background of the banner is red; a white circle inside, and in the center of this circle is a black hoe-shaped cross. After long alterations, I finally found the necessary ratio between the size of the banner and the size of the white circle, and finally settled on the size and shape of the cross.

In the view of Hitler himself, she symbolized "the struggle for the triumph of the Aryan race." This choice combined both the mystical occult meaning of the swastika, and the idea of ​​the swastika as an “Aryan” symbol (due to its prevalence in India), and the already established use of the swastika in the German extreme right tradition: it was used by some Austrian anti-Semitic parties, and in March 1920 during the Kapp putsch, it was depicted on the helmets of the Erhardt brigade that entered Berlin (here, perhaps, there was the influence of the Baltic states, since many fighters of the Volunteer Corps encountered a swastika in Latvia and Finland). Already in the 20s, the swastika became increasingly associated with Nazism; after 1933, it finally began to be perceived as a Nazi symbol par excellence, as a result of which, for example, it was excluded from the emblems of the scouting movement.

However, strictly speaking, not any swastika was a Nazi symbol, but a four-pointed one, with the ends pointing to the right side and rotated by 45 °. At the same time, it should be in a white circle, which in turn is depicted on a red rectangle. It was this sign that was on the state banner of National Socialist Germany from 1933 to 1945, as well as on the emblems of the civil and military services of this country (although, of course, other options were used for decorative purposes, including by the Nazis).

Actually, the Nazis used the term to designate the swastika that served as their symbol. Hakenkreuz ("Hackenkreuz", literally "hook cross", translation options also - "crooked" or "arachnid"), which is not a synonym for the word swastika (German. Swastika), which is also used in German. It can be said that "Hackenkreuz"- the same national name for the swastika in German, as "solstice" or "kolovrat" in Russian or "hackaristi" in Finnish, and is usually used specifically to refer to the Nazi symbol. In Russian translation, this word was translated as "hoe-shaped cross".

On the poster of the Soviet graphic artist Moor "Everything on" G "" (1941), the swastika consists of 4 letters "G", symbolizing the first letters of the names of the leaders of the Third Reich written in Russian - Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering.

Geographical objects in the form of a swastika

forest swastika

Forest swastika - forest plantation in the form of a swastika. They are found both in open areas in the form of a corresponding schematic planting of trees, and in the forest area. In the latter case, as a rule, a combination of coniferous (evergreen) and deciduous (deciduous) trees is used.

Until 2000, a forest swastika existed northwest of the settlement of Zernick, in the district of Uckermark, in the state of Brandenburg in northwestern Germany.

On a hillside near the village of Tash-Bashat, in Kyrgyzstan, on the border with the Himalayas, there is a forest swastika "Eki Narin" ( 41.447351 , 76.391641 41°26′50.46″ N sh. 76°23′29.9″ E d. /  41.44735121 , 76.39164121 (G)).

Labyrinths and their images

Buildings in the shape of a swastika

Complex 320-325(English) Complex 320-325) - one of the buildings of the naval landing base in Coronado (Eng. Naval Amphibious Base Coronado ), in San Diego Bay, California. The base is operated by the US Navy and is the central training and operations base for the Special Forces and Expeditionary Forces. Coordinates 32.6761, -117.1578.

The building of the Complex was built between 1967 and 1970. The original design consisted of two central buildings for the boiler plant and a relaxation area and a threefold repetition of a 90-degree turn to the central buildings of the L-shaped barracks building. The completed building is shaped like a swastika when viewed from above.

Swastika computer symbol

The Unicode character table has the Chinese characters 卐 (U+5350) and 卍 (U+534D), which are swastikas.

Swastika in culture

In the Spanish series "Black Lagoon" (Russian version of "Closed School"), a Nazi organization developing in the bowels of a secret laboratory under a boarding school had a coat of arms in which the swastika was encrypted.

Gallery

• Swastika in European culture



Swastika in a 2nd century AD Roman mosaic

see also

Notes

1. R. V. Bagdasarov. Radio program "Swastika: blessing or curse" on "Echo of Moscow".
2. Korablev L. L. Graphic magic of the Icelanders. - M.: "Veligor", 2002. - S. 101
3. http://www.swastika-info.com/images/amerika/usa/cocacola-swastika-fob.jpg
4. Gorodtsov V. A. Archeology. Stone period. M.; Pg., 1923.
5. Yelinek Jan. Large illustrated atlas of primitive man. Prague, 1985.
6. Tarunin A. Past - Kolovrat in Russia.
7. Bagdasarov, Roman; Dymarsky Vitaly, Zakharov Dmitry Swastika: blessing or curse. "The Price of Victory". "Echo of Moscow". Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved April 7, 2010.
8. Bagdasarov, Roman.. - M .: M., 2001. - S. 432.
9. Sergei Fomin. Materials for the history of the Tsaritsyn Cross
10. Letters from the Royal Family from imprisonment. Jordanville, 1974, p. 160; Dehn L. The Real Tsaritsa. London, 1922. P. 242.
11. There. S. 190.
12. Nikolaev R. Soviet "credit cards" with a swastika? . Site "Bonistika". - the article was also published in the newspaper "Miniature" 1992 No. 7, p. 11. Archived from the original on August 23, 2011. Retrieved June 24, 2009.
13. Evgeny Zhirnov. To assign the right to wear a swastika to all Red Army soldiers // Vlast magazine. - 08/01/2000 - No. 30 (381)
14. http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/victory/559590-echo/ Interview with historian and religious scholar Roman Bagdasarov
15. http://lj.rossia.org/users/just_hoaxer/311555.html LYUNGTN
16. Kuftin B.A. Material culture of Russian Meshchera. Part 1. Women's clothing: shirt, poneva, sundress. - M.: 1926.
17. W. Shearer. Rise and fall of the Third Reich
18. quote from R. Bagdasarov's book "Mysticism of the Fiery Cross", M., Veche, 2005
19. Discussion of the terms Hakenkreuz and Swastika in the LiveJournal community "Linguaphiles" (in English)
20. Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf"
21. Kern German. Labyrinths of the world / Per. from English. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka-klassika, 2007. - 432 p.
22. Azerbaijani Carpets
23. Li Hongzhi. Zhuan Falun Falun Dafa

Literature

In Russian

1. Wilson Thomas. Swastika. The oldest known symbol, its movement from country to country, with observations on the movement of some crafts in prehistoric times / Translated from English: A. Yu. Moskvin // The history of the swastika from ancient times to the present day. - Nizhny Novgorod: Books Publishing House, 2008. - 528 p. - S. 3-354. - ISBN 978-5-94706-053-9.
   (This is the first publication in Russian of the best fundamental work on the history of the swastika, written by Thomas Wilson, curator of the department of prehistoric anthropology of the US National Museum, and published for the first time in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution (Washington) in 1896).
2. Akunov V. The swastika is the oldest symbol of mankind (a selection of publications)
3. Bagdasarov R.V. Swastika: sacred symbol. Ethnoreligious Essays. - Ed. 2nd, corrected. - M .: White Alvy, 2002. - 432 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-7619-0164-1
4. Bagdasarov R.V. Mystic of the fiery cross. Ed. 3rd, add. and corrected - M.: Veche, 2005. - 400 p. - 5000 copies. - (Labyrinths of occult knowledge). -

A lot of legends and conjectures have accumulated around this ancient symbol, so it may be interesting for someone to read about this ancient solar cult symbol.


In fact, I, who grew up in the USSR, had a biased attitude towards the swastika as a fascist sign. But is it really so? The swastika is one of the most archaic sacred symbols found among many peoples of the world. Swastika symbols denoted calendar signs back in the days of the Scythian kingdom.

Many people are currently Swastika associated with fascism and Hitler. This has been hammered into people's heads for the past 70 years. It's time to fix the situation.
In modern schools, and in lyceums and gymnasiums in Russia, modern children are voiced a rather delusional hypothesis that the Swastika is a German fascist cross, made up of four letters "G", denoting the first letters of the leaders of Nazi Germany: Hitler, Himmler, Goering and Goebbels (sometimes He is replaced by Hess). Well, variations on this theme, Germany Hitler Goebbels Himmler. At the same time, few children think about the fact that in German surnames: HITLER, HIMMLER, GERING, GEBELS (HESS), there are no Russian letters "G". I don’t know what they pass off as truth in Western schools, but I’m more than sure that the swastika is primarily a fascist symbol there.Unfortunately, the true meaning of this runic symbol over the past 70 years has been erased by this stereotype. At the same time, from time immemorial, the swastika has been an integral part of the Slavic ornament.

Moreover, not wanting to look into the depths of centuries, you can find more intelligible examples. Not many people remember that the Swastika was depicted on Soviet money in the period from 1917 to 1923 as a legalized state symbol; not immediately noticeable, but the fact itself. She is in the center.

As you can see, Soviet power, 18 years old.

No doubt, before the stars, she was no less popular.

And not only on Russian money it was. Here are the Lithuanian five litas.

They also forgot that on the sleeve patches of soldiers and officers of the Red Army in the same period there was also a Swastika in a laurel wreath, and inside the Swastika were the letters R.S.F.S.R. And how to remember when almost 100 years have passed since then. That is, we must not remember, but know.

There is such a hypothesis that Comrade I.V. Stalin himself presented the Golden Swastika-Kolovrat as a party symbol to Adolf Hitler in 1920. But it may already be invented, I'm not sure.

Well, for balance, American troops are 30 years old. 45th Infantry Division.

And the famous flight division Lafayette.



And there were also Finnish, Polish and Latvian stripes with a swastika. If you are interested, you can independently find them all on the Internet.

A thoughtful and not stupid person will always distinguish the swastika painted on the grave of a veteran from the swastika in an ethnic ornament.

The antics of neo-fascists and just bastards who draw black crosses on the tombstones of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Riga cannot be attributed to ethnic rituals. And yet, with all my uncompromising attitude towards fascism and the results of the war and a fairly biased attitude towards the swastika, I decided to dig for information on this topic. But since we have touched on the most famous interpretation of this symbol today, let's talk about fascism itself.
The term Fascism comes from the Latin "fascio" bunch, bunch. In Russian, a similar word is fascina - a bunch of branches, rods. Fascine symbolizes something strong, reliable created from the weak, fragile. Remember the parable of the fingers, which are each weak in themselves, and being clenched into a fist represents strength. Or a historical example, when it is easy to break every arrow, but it is impossible to do it with a whole bunch.

"The Roman soldiers of Julius Caesar, who conquered Egypt, began to call themselves the first fascists. (In many respects, their methods were quite fascist in the modern sense) In the image of the Medjaevs, the Romans believed that they were bringing order and law to the barbarian country. The symbol of the emperor's power was considered a military an ax overlaid with a bunch of rods and intertwined with ribbons, which was called fascina. The symbolism is that around a strong power (axe), through small restrictions (ribbon), peoples (rods) will grow stronger." (c) But let's get back to the swastika sign, the runic solar symbol.

We will return to the symbolism of the Third Reich towards the end of the publication. In the meantime, let's consider the swastika without shudder and prejudice. Let's try to get rid of the contemptuous look at this ancient symbol of eternal rotation.

I decided to distance myself from the presentation of this topic by the New Russian preachers. It is impossible to deny the fact that the ancient Slavic traditions used the solar sign of the swastika, but their approach is very obsessive. In order not to slide into the opposite direction of delusions, let's look at the swastika a little wider.

Considering that not everyone can handle long texts, I decided to show the collected examples in order to rehabilitate the sign itself. Let's just pay attention to all the variety of swastikas in the cultures of different peoples. To understand the essence of this should be enough.

Let's start with the universe. Find the Big Dipper, and to the left of it you will see a constellation in the form of a Swastika. I do not know if this is true, but now it is excluded from their atlases of the starry sky. That's what the articles say. Didn't check it myself, it's not that important.


Doesn't it look like a spiral galaxy?
And here are the runic symbols of the ancestors. There are also many examples of them, and options for interpretation.

And India, where the swastika is very common.

Even among the jungle you can find a swastika.

What do you think is in the picture? This is a fragment of the attire of an Orthodox priest of the highest church rank.

Do you still believe that the Nazis invented the swastika?

Do you recognize anyone in this picture? The Russian emperor hurries to his car.

But you are not looking at the king, but at the hood of the car. Found? The appearance of the swastika at the court of the last Russian tsar is associated with the name of his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna. Perhaps the influence of the doctor Pyotr Badmaev on the empress was manifested here. A Buryat by origin, a lamaist, Badmaev preached Tibetan medicine and maintained ties with Tibet. There are known images of the gamma cross on the drawn postcards of the Empress.

"The left-handed swastika had a special meaning in the royal family and was used as a talisman and as a symbolic reflection of the tsar's personality. Before the execution, the former empress drew a swastika on the wall of the Ipatiev house and wrote something. The image and the inscription were photographed and then destroyed. The owner of this photo was the leader of the white movement in exile, General Alexander Kutepov. In addition, Kutepov kept an icon found on the body of the former empress. Inside the icon was a note in which the Green Dragon Society was commemorated. Grigory Rasputin received strange telegrams signed "Green" from Sweden. Society " The Greens, akin to the Thule Society, is located in Tibet. Before Hitler came to power, a Tibetan lama lived in Berlin, nicknamed the “man in green gloves.” Hitler regularly visited him. The lama told the newspapers three times without error how many Nazis would pass in the elections to the Reichstag. Initiates called the lama “the holder of the keys to the kingdom of Agharti.” In 1926, as yet small colonies of Tibetans and Hindus appear in Berlin and Munich. When the Nazis gained access to the finances of the Reich, they began to send large expeditions to Tibet, this lively connection was not interrupted until 1943. On the day when the Soviet troops finished the battle for Berlin, among the corpses of the last defenders of Nazism, about a thousand bodies of death volunteers, people of Tibetan blood, were found. (c)

In July 1918, immediately after the execution of the royal family, the troops of the White Army occupied Yekaterinburg. First of all, the officers hurried to the Ipatiev House - the last refuge of the august persons. There, among other things, they saw signs familiar from icons - crosses with curved ends. It was a left-handed, so-called collective swastika - "amulet". As it turned out later, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna painted it.

It is for these signs that the ignorant London reviewers of the film about the Romanovs will later dub it the "fascist Brunnhilde", unaware of the ancient Christian Indian traditions - to leave the swastika where the attributes of any holiday are removed after its completion, so that evil does not penetrate here. The Empress consecrated the house with a "charm", anticipating the end of the holiday of life ... (c)

And this photo shows Jackie Bouvier, the future Jackie Kennedy, in a festive costume associated with culture American Indians.

The geography is expanding.
In India, the Swastika is a symbol of esoteric Buddhism. According to legend, it was imprinted on the heart of the Buddha, for which it received the name "Seal of the Heart."

Let's look at the history of the spread of the swastika.
"" Together with one and the branches of the Indo-European tribes, who moved from the southern regions of the Russian Plain in a southeast direction and reached through Mesopotamia and Central Asia to the Indus Valley, the swastika fell into the cultures of the eastern peoples.
It was common on the painted dishes of ancient Susiana (Mesopotamian Elam on the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf - III millennium BC) - on bowls, where it was placed in the very center of the composition. This is perhaps a typical example when the swastika was used by the most ancient non-Indo-European people. The signs were symmetrically located relative to a rectangle crossed out by an oblique cross denoting the land.
Somewhat later, the Semitic peoples began to use the swastika: the ancient Egyptians and the Chaldeans, whose state was located on the western shore of the Persian Gulf.

If desired, you can even find a combination of a swastika and a six-pointed star of Magendovid in the ornament.

With the same wave of Indo-Europeans in the middle of the second millennium BC. The swastika entered the culture of North India. There it successfully existed until our time, but acquired a mystical meaning.

In the most general interpretation, the swastika is considered by the Indians a symbol of movement and the eternal rotation of the world - the "cycle of samsara." This symbol was allegedly imprinted on the heart of the Buddha and is therefore sometimes called the "Seal of the Heart". It is placed on the chest of those initiated into the mysteries of Buddhism after their death. It is carved on every rock, temple, and everywhere where the founders of Buddhism left their milestones.

Later, the swastika penetrates into Tibet, then into Central Asia and China. A century later, the swastika comes to Japan and Southeast Asia along with Buddhism, which made it its symbol.

Together with Buddhism from India, the swastika entered Tibet and Japan. In Japan, the swastika symbol is called Manji. The image of the manji can be seen on the flags, armor and family crests of the samurai.

Along with North America, the east of Eurasia is also marked with a solar sign and a Japanese man in a helmet decorated with a manji.

Japanese print from the 18th century

Japanese roof

Here is the facade of a building in Kathmandu decorated with a swastika.

Here is the Buddha himself.

At this point, it was already possible to put an end to it. For a general understanding that there is nothing wrong with the swastika itself, these examples are already enough. But we'll see a few more. The East generally more carefully preserves its history and observes traditions. Pagoda tower with golden swastika, solar symbol.

Another Buddha
Is this not an example of the fact that the solar Kolovrat is not just an ornament of an ornamental nature, but a sacred symbol that has a deep sacred meaning. That is why we can see it on the Buddhist mandala.

And on the sacred stupa

Modern Nepal

Kolovrat-swastika is still imprinted on mammoth tusks. Under the golden Kolovrat, on a scarlet banner, the legendary Prince Svyatoslav went to Constantinople, beat the Khazars. This radiant symbol was used by pagan magi (priests) in rituals associated with the ancient Slavic Vedic Faith, and is still embroidered by Vyatka, Kostroma,
Vologda needlewomen.

In early Christianity, the swastika was known as a gammed cross, until the end of the Middle Ages it was one of the emblems of Christ, it could often be found on Orthodox icons. As an example, the swastika on the headdress of the Mother of God of the icon called "Reigning". Remember the ornament on the festive attire of an Orthodox priest above? From there.

According to legend, Genghis Khan wore a ring with a swastika on his right hand, into which a magnificent ruby ​​\u200b\u200bwas set - a sun stone. In the oldest synagogue in Israel, the Swastika is depicted on the floor, although it is believed that the Jews are almost the only tribe that does not consider the swastika a sacred symbol.

Once again, the Swastika became popular in European culture in the 19th century. It began to be used everywhere in ornamentation, as a sign of Light, Sun, Love, Life. There was even an interpretation that the Swastika symbol must be understood as an abbreviation of four words starting with the Latin letter “L”: Light - Light, Sun; Love - Love; Life - Life; Luck - Fate, Luck, Happiness. This is already its modern interpretation, without signs of a pagan cult.

Currently, the swastika is depicted on the presidential standard of Finland.

Created in 1921 according to the sketches of Adolf Hitler, the party symbols and the flag of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers' Party) subsequently became the state symbols of Germany (1933-1945). It is possible that Hitler, when choosing a swastika as an emblem, was guided by the theory of the German geopolitician Karl Haushofer, who believed that the swastika is a symbol of thunder, fire and fertility among the ancient Aryan magicians.

It is Haushofer who owns the expression: “Space as a force factor”, which Hitler borrowed from him. In the view of Hitler himself, the swastika symbolized "the struggle for the triumph of the Aryan race." By this time, the Austrian anti-Semitic organizations were already actively using the Swastika.

And finally, photos of a friend. Swastika in Singapore.

(With)

Symbols were powerful weapons in the Nazi transformation of society. Never before or since in history have symbols played such an important role in political life and been used so consciously. 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 public institutions laid down 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 did 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 state emblem was replaced by a new one, and the swastika took center stage in it.

The life of society at all levels was saturated with Nazi symbols. No wonder Hitler was interested in methods of influencing mass consciousness. Based on the opinion of the French sociologist Gustave Le Bon that the best way to control large groups of people is through propaganda aimed at the senses and not the intellect, he created a gigantic propaganda apparatus that was supposed to convey to the masses the ideas of National Socialism in a simple, understandable and emotional. Many official symbols appeared, each reflecting a part of Nazi ideology. Symbols worked like the rest of propaganda: uniformity, repetition, and mass production.

The desire of the Nazis for total power over citizens was also manifested in the insignia that people from various fields had to wear. Members of political organizations or administrations wore cloth patches, badges of honor and pinned badges with symbols approved by the 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 also 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 categories of prisoners corresponded to different colors of stripes. Blacks were worn by the mentally handicapped, alcoholics, lazy, gypsies and women sent to concentration camps for so-called anti-social behavior: prostitution, lesbianism or for the use of contraceptives. Homosexual men were required to wear pink triangles, members of the Jehovah's Witnesses - purple. Red, the color of socialism so hated by the Nazis, was worn by "enemies of the state": political prisoners, socialists, anarchists and freemasons. The patches could be combined. For example, a homosexual Jew was forced to wear a pink triangle on a yellow triangle. Together they created a two-color "Star of David".

Swastika

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

The most ancient archaeological finds with the image of the 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 during the Bronze Age, i.e. 2600-1900 BC. Similar finds of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages have also been discovered 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 be different depending on the culture. In ancient China, for example, the swastika denoted the number 10,000 and then infinity. In Indian Jainism, it denotes 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 the "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."

The 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 19th century, Schliemann began excavating the ruins of ancient Troy near Hisarlik in the north of modern Turkey. On many finds, the archaeologist discovered a swastika, a symbol familiar to him from ancient pottery found during excavations at Köningswalde in Germany. Therefore, Schliemann decided that he had found the missing link connecting the Germanic ancestors, Greece of the Homeric era and the mythical India, sung in the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Schliemann consulted the orientalist and racial theorist Emil Burnauf, who argued that the swastika is a stylized image (view from above) of the burning altar of the ancient Aryans. Since the Aryans worshiped fire, the swastika was their main religious symbol, Burnauf concluded.

The discovery caused a sensation in Europe, especially in the recently unified 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 one or another historical period. More sober-minded scientists resisted such a simplification and pointed to cases when the swastika was also found outside the region where the Indo-European languages ​​\u200b\u200bdistributed.

Gradually, the swastika began to be given an increasingly anti-Semitic meaning. Burnauf argued that the Jews did not accept the swastika. The Polish writer Mikael Zmigrodsky published Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arischen Stammes in 1889, which portrayed the Aryans as a pure race that did not allow mixing with Jews. In the same year, at the World Fair in Paris, Zmigrodsky arranged 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 obviously anti-Semitic symbol of popular nationalism.

Hitler and the swastika flag

The National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) formally adopted the swastika as a party symbol in 1920. Hitler was not yet chairman of the party at that time, but he 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.

Having made several sketches of the banner, Hitler chose 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 dogmas of National Socialism. In his autobiography Mein Kampf, Hitler then explained: “Red is 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 always will be anti-Semitic.”

The 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 was not supposed to 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. The Nazi flag with the swastika flew next to the German national flag. Hundreds of union and American Communist Party members gathered on the wharf 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 the German ambassador in Washington to demand a formal apology from the American government four days later. The Americans refused to apologize, saying that the 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 flag with a swastika became the state flag of Germany. In November of the same year, this banner was introduced into the army. During the Second World War, it spread to all the countries occupied by the Nazis.

The cult of the swastika

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

This cult also included a special veneration of the banner, preserved from the time of the "beer putsch" in Munich in 1923, when several Nazis were shot dead by the police. The 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, each new army standard or flag with a swastika went through a special ceremony, during which the new cloth touched this blood-stained banner, 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 the Nazi ideology presented the world as a struggle between races and peoples, Christianity with its Jewish roots was in their eyes another proof that the previously Aryan regions had been "conquered" by the Jews. Towards the end of World War II, the Nazis developed far-reaching plans to transform the German church into a "national" one. All Christian symbols were to be replaced in it with Nazi ones. Party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg wrote that all crosses, Bibles and images of saints should be removed from churches. Instead of a Bible, Mein Kampf should be on the altar, and a sword to the left of the altar. Crosses in all churches should be replaced by "the only invincible symbol - the swastika."

post-war period

After the Second World War, 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, from the middle of the 20th century, some Buddhist temples began to be decorated 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 German history. It was not for nothing that Hitler called the state he conceived 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. A second attempt at a German empire, made in 1871, when Bismarck united the North German lands under Prussian rule, failed with Germany's defeat in World War I.

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

Scull

The image of the skull is one of the most common symbols in the history of mankind. It has different meanings in different cultures. In the West, the skull is traditionally associated with death, with the passage of 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 paintings depict death as a skeleton.

The associations associated with the skull have always been a suitable symbol for those groups that wanted to either 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, an hourglass or bones. For the same reasons, the skull and crossbones began to be used to indicate danger in other areas. For example, in chemistry and medicine, a skull and crossbones on a label means that the drug is poisonous and life-threatening.

SS men wore metal badges with skulls on their headdresses. The same sign was used in the Life Hussars of the Prussian Guards back in the time of Frederick the Great, in 1741. In 1809, the "Black Corps" of the Duke of Brunswick wore a black uniform depicting a skull without a lower jaw.

Both of these options - 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 Guards 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, the German units that refused to recognize the Treaty of Versailles chose the skull as their symbol. Some of them entered Hitler's personal guard, which later became the SS. In 1934, the leadership of the SS 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 "Totenkopf". This division was originally recruited from concentration camp guards. The ring with a "dead head", that is, with a skull, was also an honorary award that Himmler presented to distinguished and well-deserved 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 readiness to follow him to death. This meaning has also been transferred to the symbol SS. “We wear a skull on black caps as a warning to the enemy and as a sign of readiness to sacrifice our lives for the Fuhrer and his ideals,” such a statement belongs to Alois Rosenvink, an SS man.

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

iron Cross

Initially, the "Iron Cross" was the name of a military order established by the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm 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 soldiers and officers of four wars. First in the Prussian war 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 the German 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. In the center of the cross was added, the colors of the ribbon were changed to black, red and white. However, the tradition has been preserved to indicate the year of issue. Therefore, the year 1939 is stamped on the Nazi versions of the Iron Cross. 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 turn in 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 Christianity militarized in the era of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries, the meaning of the symbol expanded and began to cover such virtues of the crusaders as courage, loyalty and honor.

One of the many knightly orders 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 the cross patté. The cross is equilateral, its crossbars are curved and expand from the center to the ends.

Over time, the Teutonic Order grew in numbers and its importance increased. During the Crusades to Eastern Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries, the Teutonic Knights conquered significant territories in the place of modern Poland and Germany. In 1525, the order underwent secularization, and the lands belonging to it became part of the Duchy of Prussia. The black and white cross of knights existed in Prussian heraldry until 1871, when its stylized version with straight lines became the symbol of the German military 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 forbidden banner of the Third Reich, the war flag of Imperial Germany is used.

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 Löns published a historical novel called Werwolf (Werewolf). The action in the book takes place 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 "wolf hook" - a transverse 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.

Löns was killed in France during the First World War. However, his popularity continued in 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 included in the number of state-sanctioned symbols.

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

The sign "wolf hook" (Wolfsangel) 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 i rune, but there is no evidence for this. The "wolf hook" was carved on the buildings by members of the medieval masons' guild, who traveled around Europe and built cathedrals as early as the 14th century (these artisans were then formed into masons or "free masons"). 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 is first mentioned in the Wapenkunst heraldic dictionary of 1714, but 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 well-known examples of the use of this symbol are: “wolf hook” patches were worn by the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, the Eighth Panzer Regiment, the 4th SS Motorized Infantry Division, the Dutch SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland. In Sweden, this symbol was used by the youth wing of Lindholm's Youth of the North (Nordisk Ungdom) movement in the 1930s.

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

The "wolf hook" can also be depicted 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 the Long Knives, the party also used the symbols of the labor movement - primarily in the SA assault squads. In particular, as with the Italian fascist militants a decade earlier, in the early 30s, a revolutionary black banner was encountered in Germany. Sometimes it was completely black, sometimes combined with symbols such as the swastika, "wolf hook" or skull. At present, 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 völkisch ideology. This was reflected in the attempts to create symbols that combined elements of these two ideologies. Most often among them there were a hammer and a sword.

The hammer was drawn from the symbolism of the developing labor movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The symbols that glorified the working people 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 has also been 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 variants.

The sword symbol contained 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 radical leftist and later nationalist Sepp Erter published a newspaper called Hammer and Sword, the logo of which 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 Rhein-Ruhr and Kampf publishing houses. Both firms used the hammer and sword as emblems. The symbol was also found in the early stages of the existence of the Hitler Youth, before Hitler cracked down on 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, sometimes thousands of years. But the gear refers to much later characters. 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 the 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 back in 1919. This organization, where the letter T in the shape of a hammer and the letter N was placed inside the gear, provided technical support to various right-wing extremist groups. TENO was responsible for the operation and protection of such important industries as water 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 organizations of workers 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 origin and oppose themselves to the "cuffs", that is, the clean-cut employees. In order not to be confused with the left, neo-Nazis combine the gear with purely fascist, right-wing symbols.

A striking example is the international organization of skinheads "Hammerskins" (Hammerskins). In the center of the gear they put the numbers 88 or 14, which are used exclusively in Nazi circles.

Symbols of the ancient Germans

Many Nazi symbols were borrowed from the neo-pagan occult 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 "the hammer of the god Thor."

Irminsul

In the pre-Christian era, many pagans had a tree or a pillar in the center of the village, around which religious rites were performed. Among the ancient Germans, such a pillar was called "irminsul". This word consists of the name of the ancient German god Irmin and the word "sul", denoting 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 World Tree Yggdrasil in Norse mythology.

In 772, the Christian Charlemagne leveled the cult center of the pagans in the sacred grove of Externsteine ​​in what is now Saxony. 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. As evidence, a relief carved in stone by monks of the 12th century was cited. The relief shows the irminsul, bent under the image of St. Nicodemus and the cross - a symbol of the victory of Christianity over paganism.

In 1928 Teudt founded the Society for the Study of Ancient German History, symbolized by the "straightened" Irminsul from the Externstein relief. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the Society fell into the sphere of Himmler's interests, and in 1940 became part of the German Society for the Study of Ancient German History and Heritage of Ancestors (Ahnenerbe).

"Ahnenerbe", created by Himmler in 1935, was engaged in the study of the history of the German tribes, but the results of research that did not fit into the National Socialist doctrine of the purity of the race could not be published. The 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 their pursuit of evidence, the runes caught their attention.

Runes are signs of the writing of the pre-Christian era of the peoples who inhabited the north of Europe. Just as the letters of the Latin alphabet correspond to sounds, each runic sign corresponded to a specific sound. Runic writings of various variants have been preserved, 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 we know about runic writing is not obtained from primary sources, but from later medieval records and an even later Gothic script, so it is not known whether this information is correct.

One of the problems for Nazi research on runic signs was that there were not too many of these stones in Germany itself. 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 that give the building a decorative and expressive appearance, repeat the way the runes were written. It was understood that in such an "architectural and construction way" the people allegedly kept the secret of runic inscriptions. Such a 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 too. Without any reason, it was announced that in ancient times each individual rune had some hidden meaning, an “image”, which only the initiated could read and understand.

Serious researchers who studied the runes only as writing lost their subsidies because 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 directed towards finding evidence of the Nazi view of history and, in particular, the search for the ritual meaning of runic signs. In 1942, 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. A supporter of the occult, he devoted half his life to the revival of the "Aryan-Germanic" past and was at the beginning of the 20th century a central figure among anti-Semitic societies and associations involved 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 a trance, he wrote down his "visions". Von List argued that the faith of the Germanic tribes was a kind of mystical "natural religion" - Wotanism, which was served by a special caste of priests - "Armans". 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 the runic signs were preserved by the German people for centuries. With the help of his "supernatural" abilities, von List could 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 he was visited by the most powerful visions, and he created his own "alphabet" or runic row of 18 characters. This series, which had nothing in common with the scientifically accepted, included runes from different times and places. But, despite his anti-science, he greatly influenced the perception of runic signs not only by the Germans in general, but also by the Nazi "scientists" who studied runes in the Ahnenerbe.

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

Rune of life

"Rune of Life" - the Nazi name for the fifteenth in the Old Norse series and the fourteenth in the series of Viking runes runic sign. Among the ancient Scandinavians, the sign was called "mannar" and denoted 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 Association of German Families, and together with the letter A, the symbol of pharmacies. This rune has replaced the Christian star in newspaper announcements of the birth of children and near the date of birth on tombstones.

The "Rune of Life" was widely used on patches, which were awarded for merit in a variety of organizations. For example, the girls of the Health Service wore this emblem in the form of an oval patch with a red rune on a white background. The same sign was issued to members of the Hitler Youth who had undergone medical training. All physicians initially used the international symbol of healing: the snake and the bowl. 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 runic 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 murdered SS. 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 30s and 40s. For example, the "rune of death" is printed in the announcement of the death 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, of course, follow the traditions of Nazi Germany. In 1994, in a Swedish newspaper called The Torch of Freedom, an obituary for the death of the fascist Per Engdal was published under this rune. A year later, the newspaper "Valhall and the Future", which was published by the West Swedish Nazi movement NS Gothenburg, under this symbol, published an obituary for the death of Eskil Ivarsson, who in the 30s was an active member of Lindholm's Swedish fascist party. The 21st-century Nazi organization, the Salem Foundation, still sells patches in Stockholm with images of the "life rune", "death rune" and torch.

Rune Hagal

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

The hagal rune was a popular symbol of the völkisch movement. Guido von List put a deep symbolic meaning into this sign - the connection of man with the eternal laws of nature. In his opinion, the sign called on a person to "embrace the Universe in order to master it." This meaning was borrowed by the Third Reich, where the hagal rune represented absolute faith 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 - an SS ring, and also accompanied the weddings of the SS.

In modern times, the rune has been used by the Swedish party Hembygd, the right-wing extremist group Heimdal, and the small Nazi group Popular Socialists.

Rune Odal

The Odal rune 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 form 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.

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

The Nazis believed that between the people and the land where they live, there is some kind of mystical connection. This idea was formulated and developed in two books written by SS member Walter Darre.

After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Darré was appointed minister of agriculture. Two years earlier, he had headed a sub-department of the SS, which in 1935 became the state Central Office for Race and Resettlement, the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt (RuSHA), whose task was to put into practice the basic Nazi idea of ​​racial purity. In particular, in this institution they checked the purity of the race of members of the SS and their future wives, it was determined here which children in the occupied territories were sufficiently “Aryan” to be kidnapped and taken to Germany, it was decided here which of the “non-Aryans” should be killed after sexual relationship with a German or a German woman. The symbol of this department was the rune Odal.

The odal was worn on the collars by the soldiers of the SS Volunteer Mountain Division, where they both recruited volunteers and took “ethnic Germans” from the Balkan Peninsula and from Romania by force. During the Second World War, this division operated in Croatia.

Rune Zig

The Zig rune was considered by the Nazis 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 - "sieg" (Sieg). From this mistake 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, designed in the early 1930s by SS man Walter Heck, were sold by the textile factory of Ferdinand Hoffstatters to SS units for a price of 2.50 Reichsmarks apiece. The honor of wearing a double "zig-rune" on the collars of the uniform was the first to be awarded to part of the personal guard of Adolf Hitler.

They wore a double "zig-rune" in combination with the image of a key and in the SS Panzer Division "Hitler Youth" formed in 1943, which recruited young people 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

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

The god Tyr was traditionally seen as the god of war, hence the rune symbolized struggle, battle and victory. Graduates of the officer school wore a bandage with the image of this sign on their left arm. The symbol was also used by the 30 January 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 meetings of members of the Hitler Youth adorned colossal Tyr runes. In 1937, the so-called "Adolf Hitler Schools" were created, where the most capable students were prepared for important positions in the administration of the Third Reich. The students 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 branch of the Swedish Nazi Party NSAP (NSAP).

Mein Kampf - Hitler's autobiography, where he said that the swastika, as a symbol of the National Socialist movement, was his idea. As a child, Adolf most likely saw this symbol on the wall of a Catholic monastery near the town of Lambach. A cross with curved ends is a sign that has been widely demanded since antiquity. He was depicted on coins, household items and emblems from the 8th millennium BC. Then the swastika was a symbol of life, the sun, prosperity. Another place where Hitler could see her is the emblems of Austrian anti-Semitic organizations.

Calling the symbol Hakenkreuz (Hakenkreuz is translated from German as a hook cross), the dictator called himself the first to create this symbol, although in Germany it was used even before Hitler. So, in 1920, the leader of the Nazis, if I may say so, developed the logo of the party - a red flag, inside of which there is a white circle, and in its center a black swastika with hooks. So, red is Marxism, it came after the 120,000th demonstration of the left under the red banner. The Fuhrer also noticed how strongly the scarlet color affects the human psyche. In general, Hitler talked about all the influence of symbols on a person, about their meaning. This was to help him inject his ideology into the masses. When the Fuhrer used the color red, he turned the death of socialism. That is, so brightly he attracted the attention of workers who were already familiar with the red banner. By adding a black swastika to the already familiar scarlet flag, he, as it were, lured the citizens to his side with the help of bait.

Hitler has a red color - movement, white - the sky and nationalism, and a swastika - the work and struggle of the Aryans. In general, it is impossible to recognize the full authorship of Hitler in the creation of symbols. By and large, he even stole the name of the party from the Viennese nationalists, simply rearranged some of the letters. The use of symbols is the idea of ​​the dentist Friedrich Krohn, he handed over the note to the leadership of the party back in 1919. But in his "brilliant" autobiography, Hitler does not say a word about the dentist.

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However, in the understanding of Kron himself, red was supposed to be the personification of love for the motherland, white - hatred for the First World War, and the black cross - sorrow for the defeat in the war. Hitler stole the idea and turned it into a symbol of the struggle against the "inferior" races. Jews, Slavs and all other "blond beasts" were to be destroyed, the Fuhrer believed.

So, the ancient symbol, which personified goodness, became overshadowed by its use in National Socialist symbolism. Later, in 1946, the mention of Nazi ideology and symbols became prohibited, as decided by the Nuremberg Tribunal. The swastika, of course, also fell under the ban. Today, the attitude towards the swastika has slightly lowered its degree. For example, in April 2015, Roskomnadzor acknowledged that its use outside of any kind of propaganda does not constitute extremist activity. However, at the sight of a swastika, any person first of all remembers fascism, you cannot erase history, alas. It is very difficult to return a symbol to its former meaning after such a serious humiliation of its meaning. Even today, many racist organizations actively use the swastika in their illegal activities.

There is one strange hypothesis, which is mainly distributed on the Internet, it says that the swastika came to Hitler from Stalin. The authors refer to Russian banknotes of the period from 1917 to 1923, where the swastika was depicted. The swastika was also found on the sleeve patches of soldiers and officers of the Red Army, it was recognized in laurel wreaths, where the letters “R.S.F.S.R” were also located. As for Stalin, he could "give" the swastika to Hitler in 1920, but this hypothesis is too vague.

In order to return the ancient symbol to its original meaning, it may take more than a dozen years.