In the wake of
widespread popular usage, the
Nazi Party (
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
NSDAP) formally adopted the swastika (in German:
Hakenkreuz (hook-cross)) in 1920. This was used on the party's flag (
right), badge, and armband. It had also been used unofficially by its predecessor, the German Workers Party,
Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (
DAP).[
citation needed]
In his 1925 work
Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote that:
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.
When Hitler created a flag for the Nazi Party, he sought to incorporate both the swastika and "those revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past and which once brought so much honor to the German nation." (Red, white, and black were the colors of the
flag of the old
German Empire.) He also stated: "As National Socialists, we see our program in our flag. In
red, we see the
social idea of the movement; in
white, the
nationalistic idea; in the
swastika, the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic."
[52]
The swastika was also understood as "the symbol of the creating, acting life" (das Symbol des schaffenden, wirkenden Lebens) and as "race emblem of Germanism" (Rasseabzeichen des Germanentums)
[53].
The use of the swastika was associated by Nazi theorists with their conjecture of Aryan cultural descent of the German people. Following the
Nordicist version of the
Aryan invasion theory, the Nazis claimed that the early Aryans of
India, from whose Vedic tradition the swastika sprang, were the prototypical white invaders. It was also widely believed that the
Indian caste system had originated as a means to avoid racial mixing.[
citation needed] The concept of
Racial purity was an ideology central to Nazism, even though it is now considered
unscientific. For Rosenberg, the Aryans of India were both a model to be imitated and a warning of the dangers of the spiritual and racial "confusion" that, he believed, arose from the close proximity of races. Thus, they saw fit to co-opt the sign as a symbol of the Aryan
master race. The use of the swastika as a symbol of the
Aryan race dates back to writings of
Emile Burnouf. Following many other writers, the German nationalist poet
Guido von List believed it to be a uniquely Aryan symbol.
On March 14, 1933, shortly after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the NSDAP flag was hoisted alongside Germany's national colors. It was adopted as the sole national flag on September 15, 1935 (see
Nazi Germany).
The swastika was used for badges and flags throughout
Nazi Germany, particularly for government and military organizations, but also for "popular" organizations such as the
Reichsbund Deutsche Jägerschaft (German Hunting Society).
[55
the NAZI swastika thread
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Originally Posted by snuggans
ing self defence.
