Talk:Nazi symbolism

Semi-protected edit request on 28 September 2022

NAZI Symbol must be written as what it is known in history i.e. Hakenkreuz . HOLY SWASTIKA is symbol of well-being in Hinduism. Using it wrongly gives wrong message and insult to one of the oldest civilization on the earth. CHANGE suggested by Ashutosh Pandey. Ashusrk007 (talk) 04:10, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

•  Not done. Your suggestion ignores the very well established historic usage of the word "swastika" by English language scholars in the 19th century, before Hitler was born. Binksternet (talk) 04:57, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

• Also per WP:COMMONNAME, we use the common English language name for things. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:52, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

• I've added a banner above, and an editnotice, similar to those used on Talk:Nazism to deal with requests that Nazism be labelled "far-left". Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:18, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Context and adoption of the Swastika

We have had several attempts to give the symbol one of it's earlier names Hakenkreuz (I've just reverted one hence this topic).

Historically the symbol has 'spent' far more time being used in other contexts and with names that have spanned centuries than the very brief period when it was 'appropriated' the Nazi party.

While Swastika is used and named correctly in this article some background to the adoption of the Swastika by Hitler and the Nazis as a central symbol is quite interesting and would, I think, also assist in easing the tensions felt by those who feel the symbol was stolen by the Nazis and is therefore misrepresented.

See for example The Man Who Brought the Swastika to Germany, and How the Nazis Stole It and The Origins of the Swastika

I would write a short section on this but being a sensitive area I invite a more experienced editor to tackle that. If no one else fancies it I will have a go. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 05:57, 16 March 2023 (UTC) I realise some of this is covered elsewhere I think the development of this as a Nazi symbol could do with more coverage here.

My attempt:

THE HISTORY OF THE SWASTIKA

The swastika is an ancient symbol that was in use in many different cultures for at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler made it the centerpiece of the Nazi flag. Its present-day use by certain extremist groups promotes hate.

In 1871 Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, continuing the excavations started by British archaeologist Frank Calvert at a site known as Hisarlik mound, on the Aegean coast of Turkey, found the ancient city of Troy.  The site held seven different layers from societies going back thousands of years and shards of pottery and sculpture with at least 1,800 variations of spindle-whorls, or swastikas.

Schliemann connected the symbol with similar shapes found on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors.” Other European scholars and thinkers linked the symbol to a shared Aryan culture that spanned Europe and Asia.

“When Heinrich Schliemann discovered swastika-like decorations on pottery fragments in all archaeological levels at Troy, it was seen as evidence for a racial continuity and proof that the inhabitants of the site had been Aryan all along,” writes anthropologist Gwendolyn Leick. “The link between the swastika and Indo-European origin, once forged was impossible to discard. It allowed the projection of nationalist feelings and associations onto a universal symbol, which hence served as a distinguishing boundary marker between non-Aryan, or rather non-German, and German identity.”

German nationalist groups like the Reichshammerbund (a 1912 anti-Semitic group) and the Bavarian Freikorps (paramilitarists who wanted to overthrow the Weimar Republic in Germany) used the swastika to reflect their “newly discovered” identity as the master race. The original meaning, that it traditionally meant good fortune, or that it was found everywhere from monuments to the Greek goddess Artemis to representations of Brahma and Buddha and at Native American sites, or that no one was truly certain of its origins no longer mattered

In Germany, after World War I, a number of far-right nationalist movements adopted the swastika. As a symbol, it had became associated with the idea of a racially “pure” state, a symbol of “Aryan identity” and German nationalist pride. The Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika or Hakenkreuz (Ger., hooked cross) as its symbol in 1920.

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote:

“I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika.”

As the swastika became more and more intertwined with German nationalism, Adolf Hitler’s influence grew—and he adopted the hooked cross as the Nazi party symbol in 1920. “He was attracted to it because it was already being used in other nationalist, racialist groups,” says Steven Heller, author of The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? and Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. “I think he also understood instinctually that there had to be a symbol as powerful as the hammer and sickle, which was their nearest enemy.”

To further enshrine the swastika as a symbol of Nazi power, Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s minister of propaganda) issued a decree on May 19, 1933 that prevented unauthorized commercial use of the hooked cross. The symbol also featured prominently Leni Riefenstahl’s propagandist film Triumph of the Will, writes historian Malcolm Quinn. “When Hitler is absent… his place is taken by the swastika, which, like the image of the Führer, becomes a switching station for personal and national identities.” The symbol was on uniforms, flags and even as a marching formation at rallies.

The connotations of the swastika had forever changed. Lukewarmbeer (talk) 07:16, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

Thoughts:

THE HISTORY OF THE SWASTIKA

The swastika is an ancient symbol that was in use in many different cultures for at least 5,000 years before Adolf Hitler made it the centerpiece of the Nazi flag, altering its symbolic meaning forever. Its present-day use by certain extremist groups promotes hate. The second sentence isn't really part of the history.

In 1871, Archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, continuing the excavations started by British archaeologist Frank Calvert at a site known as Hisarlik mound, on the Aegean coast of Turkey, found the ancient city of Troy. The site held seven different layers from societies going back thousands of years and shards of pottery and sculpture with at least 1,800 variations of spindle-whorls, or swastikas. Schliemann connected the symbol with similar shapes found on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors”. Other European scholars and thinkers linked the symbol to a shared Aryan culture that spanned Europe and Asia.

“When Heinrich Schliemann discovered swastika-like decorations on pottery fragments in all archaeological levels at Troy, it was seen as evidence for a racial continuity and proof that the inhabitants of the site had been Aryan all along", writes anthropologist Gwendolyn Leick. “The link between the swastika and Indo-European origin, once forged was impossible to discard. It allowed the projection of nationalist feelings and associations onto a universal symbol, which hence served as a distinguishing boundary marker between non-Aryan, or rather non-German, and German identity.”

German nationalist groups like the Reichshammerbund (a 1912 anti-Semitic group) and the Bavarian Freikorps (paramilitarists who wanted to overthrow the Weimar Republic in Germany) used the swastika to reflect their “newly discovered” identity as the master race. The original meaning, that it traditionally meant good fortune, or that it was found everywhere from monuments to the Greek goddess Artemis to representations of Brahma and Buddha and at Native American sites, or that no one was truly certain of its origins no longer mattered. Three different ideas with "or" disconnecting each sounds too speculative I think, guessing what the original meaning was in getting across the main point that the symbol meaning was now being used in a distinctly different way.

In Germany, after World War I, a number of far-right nationalist movements adopted the swastika. As a symbol, it had became associated with the idea of a racially “pure” state, a symbol of “Aryan identity” and German nationalist pride. The Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika or Hakenkreuz (Ger., hooked cross) as its symbol in 1920.

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote:

“I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika.”

As Hitler's influence grew, the swastika became more intertwined with German nationalism and he adopted the hooked cross as the Nazi party symbol in 1920. “He was attracted to it because it was already being used in other nationalist, racialist groups,” says Steven Heller, author of The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? and Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. Citing two books sounds more like boasting his abilities than citing the required work. “I think he also understood instinctually that there had to be a symbol as powerful as the hammer and sickle, which was their nearest enemy.”

To further enshrine the swastika as a symbol of Nazi power, Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s minister of propaganda) issued a decree on May 19, 1933 that prevented unauthorized commercial use of the hooked cross. The symbol also featured prominently Leni Riefenstahl’s propagandist film Triumph of the Will, writes historian Malcolm Quinn. “When Hitler is absent… his place is taken by the swastika, which, like the image of the Führer, becomes a switching station for personal and national identities.” The symbol was on uniforms, flags and even as a marching formation at rallies.

Otherwise this seems good, I'm not an absolute expert on the subject but this writing seems useful enough to include, I think. ButterCashier (talk) 08:47, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Exceptionally poor article

I've just removed a wide variety of material that was either totally unsourced, clearly WP:OR (links to various postcards), and poorly sourced (like to symbols.com). This is an improvement, but the article is still a confused, poorly-sourced mess. We need extensive discussion from and citations to the extensive scholarship on this topic. The state of this article is currently unacceptable and I've tagged it for a rewrite. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on this edit? I think Hitler's personal interpretation of the Swastika's symbolism is very relevant (as long as it's clearly labelled as his interpretation). — Czello 15:47, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes—Hitler is obviously not a reliable source for anything and his words should never just be taken at face value. His objective wasn't communicating truth, including when he discussed himself. We need secondary discussion from scholars providing context. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:56, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Well, we're not really claiming he's a reliable source on anything other than his own views on the matter. That's what I mean by saying it should be fine if we clearly label it as his own interpretation. — Czello 16:13, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Without context from experts, for all we know Hitler could have said multiple different things about this over multiple years. Hitler is after all a WP:PRIMARY source here. It shouldn't be difficult to find discussion from scholars about Hitler's claims. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Then can’t you just go and… um… find it? Dronebogus (talk) 17:06, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT. :bloodofox: (talk) 17:15, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

• Bloodofox's radical changes to the article do not have consensus. Please discuss them here. Give your justification for each of the majaor changes you propose, and do not restore the edits without a consensus to do so. Please do not edit war. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:24, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

There's no need to find consensus for removing obvious WP:RS violations and unreferenced paragraphs (in fact, if you want to restore the unreferenced material, the burden is on your to provide WP:RS-compliant sources). No one needs your permission to edit an article. "References" like symbols.com, cardcow.com, and liveauctioneers.com are obviously not acceptable, not to mention sites that look like they're from early 2000s HTML that cite Wikipedia. And as for the unreferenced paragraphs you've restored: WP:PROVEIT.

I'll thank you not to edit war to restore this junk and, most importantly, to get out of the way when others put in effort to improve a page aligned with Wikipedia policy. Your personal axe-grinding is really getting out of hand—in fact, I think it's about time we elevate this. :bloodofox: (talk) 22:45, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think I would classify this article as "exceptionally poor", but as just restored it does have big sourcing problems, and interweaves Nazi and neo-Nazi symbolism in a way that is both confusing and inaccurate. I worked on one small detail that jumped out at me, the unquestioning and untranslated use of List's sig for the S-rune; this is one of the stark differences between runology and the Armanen runes (and has an obvious bearing on the SS insignia). The article does need to be cut back and rewritten based on better sources, and with a clear distinction made between Nazi and neo-Nazi. It also needs to state in the intro that many Nazi symbols, in addition to other symbols, have been subsequently used by neo-Nazis; that's a significant part of the article. (Or it could become a separate article.) IMO at least the following edits by Bloodofox were justified in whole or in part, and I would advocate either reinstating them with rapid addition of reliable sources, or a new and thorough reworking of the article based on reliable sources. Bloodofox's approach is less destructive since they've separated the cuts into many smaller edits, making it easier to keep some of their changes and reject others.

• excising very bad sources, as stated in the edit summary
• excising a very bad source on David Lane
• "Disentangling Nazi Germany and neo-Nazism"; on runes, I would, however, not remove the mention of Nazi and neo-Nazi use of "the historical runic alphabet" if we have RS for Nazi use of algiz and tiwaz. For several runes, the important point is that they were renamed and/or reinterpreted in List's Armanen futhark.
• Excising Flags of the World refs (one was also removed in the "Disentangling" edit). As the edit summary states, this is an unreliable source, not least because it's circular.
• Addition of Nazi use of the Irminsul emblem. I find surprising Bloodofox's edit summary in this earlier cutback of the article that The vast majority of symbolism used in Nazi Germany was explicitly Christian. But if the article is going to talk about Nazi misuse of the runes, it should definitely talk about the SS's appropriation of the neo-heathen Irminsul symbol. However, all the itens in that list should have refs.
• removing a paragraph on the meaning of the flag as given by Hitler in Mein Kampf. I see discussion above on how to present Hitler's explanation of the flag. I believe the matter should be summarized here, but with a non-primary RS added. All the more so since Mein Kampf is the single most notorious example of a propaganda manifesto, and cannot be taken at face value for any claims of originality or of intent.

Bloodofox, can you find and add sources, please? One of the most obviously applicable of which I'm aware is the German book Die schwarze Sonne, but it's absolutely not available in the US, online or off; I've tried. Anyone else with access to that, or even to a good academic library? There are two English-language social histories of the Third Reich of which I'm aware, at least one of which covers things like the replacement of the cross ("dagger") in newspaper death announcements for war casualties with the swastika. And chunks of Michael Kater's Ahnenerbe book are visible on Google Books. But I'm at a big disadvantage in referencing this material. (In addition to which, I'm about to run up against my editing limit for the month, and have another project that's taking up some of my time.) Yngvadottir (talk) 23:28, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

@Yngvadottir I have Hitler's monsters: a supernatural history of the Third Reich by Eric Kurlander which is recent, scholarly, and probably covers some of the necessary ground, and have good access to academic sources. Time's an issue for me too, though. Mackensen (talk) 01:43, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

There is some obviously poor sourcing in the article. The WP:OUTRAGE nature of the topic is not an excuse to apply a different standard of evidence than elsewhere on the encyclopedia. There is no justification for retaining user-edited wiki types of sources here.

That said, many of the claims strike me as things where better sources are likely to exist, and there is no urgent impetus to remove quickly, like BLP. Rather than immediate mass removal, it would be more appropriate to tag, discuss, and wait.

Regarding Mein Kampf, its of course not a generally reliable source, but it's a reliable source for Hitler's stated views, which are of historical interest and fall within the scope of this article. It would be better to contextualize them with secondary sources if possible. Sennalen (talk) 15:00, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Material that might be worth keeping with sources, that was removed with these edits:

• In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler described the symbolism of the Nazi flag: "The red expressed the social thought underlying the movement. White the national thought. And the swastika signified the mission allotted to us—the struggle for the victory of Aryan mankind and at the same time the triumph of the ideal of creative work ..."
• The SS bolts, the runic insignia of the Schutzstaffel

Otherwise the edits seem to be an improvement. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

I've made a start at a rewrite, adding one source (Michael Kater's Ahnenerbe book apparently covers SS use of the Irminsul symbol only in an appendix). I got via interlibrary loan Monica Black; Eric Kurlander, eds. (2015). Revisiting the "Nazi Occult". Rochester, New York: Camden House. ISBN 978-1-57113-906-1., hoping that the adjacent topic would make for some possible citations, but can't find anything useful in it :-( I think I have Goodrick-Clark's book somewhere, but don't believe it passes muster. Mackensen, if Kurlander's book is more reliable and can reference some of the symbols, please go ahead when you have time :-) I'm unable to identify the "Schwarze Sonne" book I had seen, which was a German-language directory of right-wing symbols. I now find a Westdeutscher Rundfunk film by Rüdiger Sünner at that title, Schwarze Sonne, mythologische Hintergründe des Nationalsozialismus, issued in 2009 in the US as Black Sun: Secret Aryan cults and their influence on Nazi ideology (which I can't access), and by the same author Rüdiger Sünner (2003) [1999]. Schwarze Sonne: Entfesselung und Missbrauch der Mythen in Nationalsozialismus und rechter Esoterik. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. ISBN 9783451052057., which looks potentially useful but I can see only snippets on Google Books.

Incidentally, Esoteric Nazism deals not with esotericism under the Nazis, but with post-1945 esoteric interpretations. So I will put here instead of there that we should be aware of (and preferably have an article on) Aktion gegen Geheimlehren und sogenannte Geheimwissenschaften (Aktion Heß), the crackdown on practitioners of the occult and "woo" following Rudolf Hess's flight. Germanic paganism / neo-heathenry was very much not endorsed by the Nazi regime, and outside corners of the SS and in particular of the Ahnenerbe, there was little protection for those pursuing such inclinations after June 1941. Which is why I think there's a case for separating Neo-Nazi symbols from this article. (Neo-Nazi symbolism redirects here, and has no independent history.) Yngvadottir (talk) 10:52, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

It’s not called Swastika, it’s called Hawkencruz. there’s a huge difference between these two. Please educate yourself guys 58.165.146.98 (talk) 09:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Its WP:COMMONNAME is 'swastika'. Don't tell other people to educate themselves: it's rude and, in light of the content of the discussion above, it makes you look a bit silly.. Girth Summit _(blether) 09:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Replying to a driveby SPA’s post in a months old discussion is also a bit silly. Dronebogus (talk) 16:10, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Meta. So, what is replying to a silly reply to a driveby SPA's post? 😛 Girth Summit _(blether) 17:42, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

References

General information itself is wrong

If the general information is wrong then why not change it. First of all Swastika is not English origin word. For people to relate make it right as this information about the word is wrong. So why not correct it rather than keeping it as Swastika? Sometimes Wikipedia has unreliable information. 2403:5811:E9EE:0:68F0:61F8:4812:D0E2 (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Symbol that should be added to the article.

The eagle emblem at the top of the Wehrmacht Army article should be added. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army_(1935%E2%80%931945)

It has the less recognizable downward pointed wings, but its still familiar enough of a Nazi symbol that some people will mistake Saladin's eagle for it. 162.246.134.250 (talk) 02:30, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

To remove Swastik name from article.

To whom so ever it may concern,

it’s my humble request to the editor of this article that please remove Swastik name from article as it is been holy for Hindus and Nazi symbol has name as hooked cross (German: Hakenkreuz), angled cross (Winkelkreuz), or crooked cross (Krummkreuz); cross cramponned, cramponnée. so do the needful and change it respectively. ref :- All Four Ved and 108 Puran from Hindu Religious text & link given below

Swastika Dineshkolhare1 (talk) 08:58, 22 July 2024 (UTC)