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Wolfsangel

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Wolfsangel
Horizontal and vertical stylizied Wolfsangels

The Wolfsangel (German pronunciation: [ˈvɔlfsˌʔaŋəl], translation "wolf hook") or Crampon (French pronunciation: [kʁɑ̃pɔ̃]) is a heraldic charge from Germany and East of France,[1] inspired by medieval wolf traps that consisted of a "Z-shaped" metal hook hung by a chain from a metal bar. The stylised version focuses on the Z-shape and can include a bar through the centre. Such symbols are still found in a number of municipal coats of arms in Germany. The symbol itself bears a visual resemblance to the Eihwaz rune, historically part of the runic alphabet.[2] Other names for a Wolfsangel included Wolfsanker ("wolf-anchor") or Wolfsjagd as well as hameçon or hameçon de loup, a half-moon shape with a ring, or as cramp or crampon in English with a ring at the center, sometimes also called Doppelhaken ("double-hook"), or a crampon with a transversal stroke. The crampon is also found as a mason's mark in medieval stonework.[3][4]

A Nazi leader with his wife and twelve children. The youngest girls have Wolfsangel symbols on their dresses; a sign for members in NS-Frauenschaft's Deutsche Kinderschar for children aged 6 to 10

In early mediveal times the symbol was believed to possess magical powers, and it became a symbol of personal liberty and independence from opressors after its adoption as an emblem of a peasant revolt in the 15th century against the severe oppression of the German princes and their mercenaries.[5] In pre-war Germany, interest in the Wolfsangel was revived by the immense popularity of Hermann Löns's 1910 novel Der Wehrwolf during the 1930s, where the protagonist, a resistance fighter during the Thirty Years' War, adopted the symbol as his personal badge. Later, the Wolfsangel was adopted by the Nazi Party,[2] and the symbol was used by various German Wehrmacht and SS units such as the Waffen-SS Division Das Reich and the Waffen-SS Division Landstorm Nederland.[2] The US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) database lists the symbol as a hate symbol and a neo-Nazi symbol.[6]

Description

8th century wolf hook from the Carolingian Villa Arnesburg, Lich.[7]
Modern reconstruction of an historical wolf trap, with wolf hook.

The Wolfsangel was a popular medieval hunting technique whereby the hook was concealed inside a chunk of meat that would impale the unsuspecting wolf who eat the meat by gulping it in one movement.[8]

The tool was further developed by attaching the hook via a chain or rope to a larger bar (often crescent-shaped, see photo opposite) that could be lodged between the overhanging branches of a tree. The wolf would therefore be encouraged to jump up to gulp the hanging chunk of meat (with hook concealed inside), thus further impaling itself in the manner of a fish caught on a fishing hook.[8]

Medieval hunters were known to use "blood trails" to lead the wolf to the Wolfsangel trap, and also used wattle fencing nearer to the trap to create narrow channels that would guide the wolf to the trap.[8]

Heraldry

The name Wolfsangel appears in a 1714 heraldic handbook, Wappenkunst, associated with a symbol distinct from the one presently known under this name. It is described as a crescent moon with a ring inside, at mid-height. Although written for the Wolfsangel, it is referring to the anchor of the Wolfsangel and not the "Wolf's-hook" proper.[9]

In modern German-language heraldic terminology, the name Wolfsangel is de facto used for a variety of heraldic charges, including the hameçon described above – a half-moon shape with a ring also called Wolfsanker and Wolfshaken; as well as the crampon – a Z shape or double-hook symbol also called Mauerhaken or Doppelhaken; and the Ƶ or double-hook symbol with a ring or transversal stroke at the center. It is only this symbol that also goes under the name Wolfsangel in the context of Neo-Nazism and occultism.

The crampon symbol is found comparatively frequently in municipal coats of arms in Germany and East of France, where it is often identified as Wolfsangel. The "crampon with central stroke" design is rarer but is still found in about a dozen contemporary municipal coats of arms.[9]

As boundary marker and "forestry symbol"

Wolfsangel on a 1755 boundary marker near the wood of Barsinghausen-Altenhof, Hanover
The Wolfsangel on an old field boundary stone in the Deister in Lower Saxony

In a 1616 boundary treaty concluded between Hesse and Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Brunswick boundary marker was called Wulffsangel. It was used not only on landmarks, but there is also evidence of its use in correspondence from the Forest Services in 1674.[citation needed]

Later the Wolfsangel was also used as a symbol on forest uniforms. In a document of 1792 regarding new uniforms, chief forester Adolf Friedrich von Stralenheim suggested a design for uniform buttons including the letters "GR" and a symbol similar to the Wolfsangel, which he called Forstzeichen. Later the Wolfsangel was also worn as a single badge in brass caps on the service and on the buttons of the Hanoverian forest supervisor. In Brunswick, it was prescribed for private forests and gamekeepers as a badge on the bonnet.[10]

The Wolfsangel is still used the various forest districts in Lower Saxony as a boundary marker, and it is part of the emblem of the state of Lower Saxony and the hunters' association Hirschmann, dedicated to the breeding and training of Hanover Hounds.[10]

In literature

In 1910, Hermann Löns published a book entitled Der Wehrwolf (later published as Harm Wulf, a peasant chronicle and The Warwolf in English) set in a 17th-century German farming community during the Thirty Years' War.

As a Nazi symbol

The emblems of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich (1939–1945), the 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division (1939–1945), the 34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland (1943–1945) and the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (1931–1936).

In Nazi Germany, the Wolfsangel was used by:

Post World War II symbolism

Post WWII symbolism
Patriot of Ukraine membera at a Right Sector event, Kyiv, 2014
Emblem of the Social-National Party of Ukraine
Logo of the Azov Battalion
File:Photos in TikTok of Nazi tattoos.jpg
Photos in TikTok of the Nazi tattoos

After World War II, public exhibition of the Wolfsangel symbol became illegal in Germany if it was connected with Neo-Nazi groups.[12][13] On August 9, 2018, Germany lifted the ban on the usage of swastikas and other Nazi symbols in video games. "Through the change in the interpretation of the law, games that critically look at current affairs can for the first time be given a USK age rating," USK managing director Elisabeth Secker told CTV. "This has long been the case for films and with regards to the freedom of the arts, this is now rightly also the case with computer and videogames."[14][15]

Outside of Germany, the Wolfsangel symbol was used by some Neo-Nazi organizations, such as in the United States where the Aryan Nations organization uses a white Wolfsangel symbol with a sword replacing the cross-bar in its logo.[16] The US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) database lists the symbol as a hate symbol and a neo-Nazi symbol.[6][17]

The Wolfsangel symbol was used in the Ukraine by the Social-National Party of Ukraine,[18][19][20] Social-National Assembly,[21] and Azov Battalion.[22][23][24][25] Group members claim that the symbol is an abbreviation for the slogan Ідея Нації (Ukrainian for "National Idea", where the symbol is a composite of the "N" and the "I") and deny connection with Nazism.[26]

In 2020, there was a brief trend of Generation Z TikTok users tattooing a "Generation Ƶ" symbol on the arm as "a symbol of unity in our generation but also as a sign of rebellion" (in the manner of the 15th-century peasant's revolts). The originator of the trend later renounced it when the appropriation of the symbol by the Nazis was brought to her attention.[6]

See also

References

  1. ^ See Wolfisheim or Wolxheim
  2. ^ a b c Lumsden, Robin (2009). Himmler's SS: Loyal to the Death's Head. The History Press. pp. 201–206. ISBN 978-0752497228. Retrieved 24 March 2015 – via Google Books.
  3. ^ Press release of the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe, 30 October 2009 No original ancient specimens of such hooks were known prior to 2009 when excavations at the Falkenburg ruin in Detmold yielded more than 25 wolf hooks dated to the 13th century. Video on YouTube
  4. ^ Störk, Werner. "Wolf-Wolfsjagd-Wolfsangel-Wolfseisen-Wolfsgrube-Luder". Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  5. ^ Lumsden, Robin (1993). The Allgemeine-SS. Osprey Publishing. p. 18. ISBN 9781855323582.
  6. ^ a b c Greenspan, Rachel (22 September 2020). "TikTok users recommended a Nazi symbol as a Gen Z tattoo idea to represent 'rebellion'". Insider. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  7. ^ Christoph Röder (2014). "Vier karolingerzeitliche Grubenhäuser bei der Junkermühle, Stadt Münzenberg". hessenARCHÄOLOGIE am.
  8. ^ a b c Almond, Richard (March 2011). Medieval Hunting. The History Press. ISBN 978-0752459493.
  9. ^ a b Gustav Adelbert Seyler (1890). "Geschichte der Heraldik (Wappenwesen, Wappenkunst und Wappenwissenschaft) ... Abt. A. des Siebmacher'schen Wappenbuches". Bauer & Raspe. p. 664. Retrieved 12 June 2015. Wolffs-Angel, frantz. hamecon, lat. uncus quo lupi capiuntur, ist die Form eines halben Mondes und hat inwendig in der Mitte einen Ring. Wolffs-Angel: French hameçon, Latin uncus quo lupi capiuntur ("hook with which wolves are caught") is the shape of a crescent moon with a ring inside, at mid-height.
  10. ^ a b Gerhard Große Löscher: Die Wolfsangel als Forst- und Jagdzeichen in Niedersachsen. In: Jürgen Delfs u. a.: Jagd in der Lüneburger Heide. Beiträge zur Jagdgeschichte. Celle 2006, ISBN 3-925902-59-7, 238–239
  11. ^ Watt, Roderick (October 1992). "Wehrwolf or Werwolf? Literature, Legend, or Lexical Error into Nazi Propaganda?". The Modern Language Review. 87 (4): 879–895. doi:10.2307/3731426. JSTOR 3731426. A study of the iconography of German nationalist groups between the wars and then of Nazi party, military, and paramilitary organizations from 1933 to 1945 proves beyond doubt that the 'Wolfsangel' symbol was widely, even indiscriminately used by them long before the formation of the Nazi Werwolf movement at the end of the war. Wolfsangel, if at all translatable, means, or at least originally meant, 'wolf trap', an instrument which is a threat to the wolf. Yet both Lons and the Nazis used it as a menacing symbol of intimidation representing the savage and relentless ferocity of the wolf... In the late summer or early autumn of 1944, when it was clear that Germany was committed to a European land war on two fronts, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler initiated Unternehmen Werwolf, ordering SS-Obergruppenführer Prutzmann to begin organizing an elite troop of volunteer special forces to operate secretly behind enemy lines.
  12. ^ "In Deutschland verbotene Zeichen und Symbole". Informations- und Dokumentationszentrum für Antirassismusarbeit in Nordrhein-Westfalen.
  13. ^ "Gruppierungen auf dem Index". Programm Polizeiliche Kriminalprävention.
  14. ^ "Germany lifts ban on Nazi symbols in video games". The Telegraph. 9 August 2018.
  15. ^ "Germany lifts ban on swastikas in videogames". PC Gamer. 9 August 2018.
  16. ^ "Aryan Nations". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  17. ^ "Wolfsangel: General Hate Symbols, Neo-Nazi Symbols". Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 17 March 2022.
  18. ^ "Kyiv's Next Image Problem". Open Democracy. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  19. ^ Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text,Per Anders Rudling “The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right: The Case of VO Svoboda" edited by Ruth Wodak, John E. Richardson. Routledge, 2012
  20. ^ Olszański, Tadeusz A. (4 July 2011). "Svoboda Party – The New Phenomenon on the Ukrainian Right-Wing Scene". Centre for Eastern Studies. OSW Commentary (56)
  21. ^ "Provoking the Euromaidan". Open Democracy. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  22. ^ "Look far right, and look right again". Open Democracy. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  23. ^ Alec Luhn (30 August 2014). "Preparing for War With Ukraine's Fascist Defenders of Freedom". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
  24. ^ Andrew E. Kramer (13 December 2014). "A Pastor's Turn Fighting for Ukraine". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 August 2015.
  25. ^ Parfitt, Tom (11 August 2014). "Ukraine crisis: the neo-Nazi brigade fighting pro-Russian separatists". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 7 December 2016.
  26. ^ РБК-Україна (22 June 2015), Комбат "Азова" заперечує зв'язок символіки батальйону з нацизмом. (in Ukrainian)

Sources

  • K. von Alberti (1960). Die sogenannte Wolfsangel in der Heraldik (in German). Südwestdeutsche Blätter für Familien und Wappenkunde. p. 89.
  • H. Horstmann (1955). Die Wolfsangel als Jagdgerät und Wappenbild (in German). Vj. Bl. d. Trierer Gesellschaft für nützliche Forschungen.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wolfsangel.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wolfsangel.
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