How Did Nazi Germany Symbols Become

To top it off, the US Army still awards Iron Crosses today for expert marksmanship. My brother has one (Though, I can't remember what it had inside of it, but I think it looked just like the one posted with the target inside) for scoring a 37/40 with a rifle.

Iron Crosses were awarded to many different armies, and has been for many years.

I wasn't around back after WWII, But I'd imagine most of the rodders/bikers with iron crosses on their stuff were war vets.

I did see a special on the discovery channel about the evolution of bikers, and they did have a segment about the Swastika in use. It was a way to rebel against the government, because most people in charge were WWII vets, and it would piss them off. Either way, I don't really care, it's just a symbol.

 

What A30ford Said. Goes Alway Back To Early Christianity. It Means About What You Want It To These Days. I Never Recall Seeing
It On A Car Before The 60's Ever. Cool Kids In My High School Ran
Them On Rats Back Then (i Was In Grade School). I Don't Think It Has Anything To Do With The Nazi's Anymore. It's Becoming Old Hat Now. Jessee James Bought It Back Strong When He Put It On His Logo. Original Roots Are In Christianity Though. What The Early
"cross" Looked Like.
Rod

 

They are just cool lookin.....?


FONZI

 

Am I the only guy to notice that most Fire Department logos use a modified version of the cross?

 

....some interesting thoughts......

I knew the swastika had roots back as far as the early Egyptians. It was a symbol of fertillity......Nile river, yadda, yadda...

I didn't know that we currently give out the iron cross for marksmanship......

 

Same as......here's another use for it, my dad was in the KRRC way back....some of the guys from Canada may know it (Green Jackets)

http://www.egframes.co.uk/CDKRRC.htm

Kev.

 

Use the search function, this has been talked about alot before

 

The iron cross was around long before the nazi thing, and world wars for that matter. I think it may have originated with the Prussian armies and was an award for valor. The iron cross as it is used today seems to be a good example of sub-culture becoming pop-culture. I enjoy using the iron cross, but find myself sensoring myself to avoid the "What's with the nazi symbole?" questions. Anyway, its nice to be in the company of many knowlegable HAMB'ers...good thread!

Kurt

 

I bought this oil pressure gauge off E-bay awhile back. It's a WWII US Navy gauge with brass tags and serial #'s on the back. It has a Maltese cross for it's logo on the face with the words US Gauge Co NY inside the cross.
Pics are a little blurry due to bad lighting in my garage.

 

The iron cross was a big part of the logo for American Lafranace fire apparatus as far back as the turn of the century. My dept. still has a 1903 Steamer and 1928 pumper, that both have iron cross logos.

 

I think you can go down to your local hardware store today and pick up a one of there guages...they still use the same symbol.

I've got an old boy scouts medadion from way back. On one side is a giant swastika...around it says "Membership emblem of the boy scouts club GOOD LUCK".

It was used a lot here as a symbol of good luck up until WWII...greeting cards and such.

 

All these symbols as previously mentioned pre-date nazi Germany. If anyone goes through old 19th cemeteries here in the South, you will find Maltese crosses on the graves of Confederate soldiers. Don't have any idea why, but the crosses were put there from the 1860's on up as the veterans died, too.
(Good material on this thread!)

 

The military still uses the iron cross. I was in the military from 1972 to 1996 and I had a iron cross on my uniform. It was for being a sharp shooter. To me the iron cross is honor. Yes you will see iron crosses on my cars and bikes. That is because of the honor of my service. You will also see the acs of spades death card (which was used in veitnam and cambodia) on the tank of my triumph chopper. I was also a fire fighter and we use the Maltese cross which is in the same family as the iron cross. Another think is look at some of the crosses the churches use There are in the same family also. I guest I hate it when some one says that the iron cross is Nazi. I would never support them. As for the the swastiga and the SS I would not ever use them on anything I have because that is Nazi.

 

Nazi symbols are for idiots.
I have never seen a swastika on a hotrod. It would be fucking stupid.

Bikers that wear swastikas are not nazis. Any biker wearing one is probably not the "biker build off" type of biker and will most likely hand you your ass if you give him shit for it. In a strange way, bikers wearing swastikas get a pass. They have since the 60's.
Hotrodders wearing swastikas are gay (I have never seen one).

 

Both symbols are hundreds of years old. They are just basic shapes that were easy to draw for primitive cultures. The swastika is a VERY old Chinese and American Indian good luck symbol. In fact I have some card table accessories from the American '20s that have a four-leaf clover, rabbit's foot, horseshoe and yes, a swastika.

Again, they are far older and have a longer history of positive meaning. They only offend those who choose to be offended. Like saying "FUCK YOU" to a remote African tribesman...it's only sounds without meaning. The iron cross and swastika are only simple and visually impactful shapes.

Hitler did turn the swastika around backwards though. I guess, for bad luck...it worked.

 

Nicht Sprecnen, Urber Was Du Nicht Weisst NICHT ALLE NAZI KANNTE IN DEN LAGERN AUS

 

Ich liebe dich und mein kuli ist gelb.

 

Might have yourself a spelling error in there. Think you meant Sprechen. I'm not sure what Urber means either.

 

MY WRITEN GERMAN IS BAD CAN GET .. UBOUVE U AND MY TYPING IS WORSE my grand father was german soilger. grandma and dad came here in 53 she still only speaks german kirk i may be wrong but "i love u and my ? is yellow

 

THE SWASTIKA

The Swastika is a well-know good-luck symbol from India. Unfortunately, it is too well known in the west, as the Nazis chose it as their main symbol. In Sanskrit, swastika means "conducive to well-being". In the Buddhist tradition, the swastika symbolizes the feet or footprints of the Buddha and is often used to mark the beginning of texts. Modern Tibetan Buddhism uses it as a clothing decoration. With the spread of Buddhism, it has passed into the iconography of China and Japan where it has been used to denote plurality, abundance, prosperity and long life.

(In India, Hindus use the swastika to mark the opening pages of account books, thresholds, doors, and offerings, the right-hand swastika is a solar symbol and the left-hand version represents Kali and magic. Among the Jains it is the emblem of their seventh Tirthankara. Other uses of the symbol: in ancient Mesopotamia it was a favourite symbol on coinage, In Scandinavia it was the symbol for the god Thor's hammer. In early Christian art it was called the gammadion cross because it was made of four gammas. It is also found in Mayan and Navajo art.)
from:
http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/general_symbols_buddhism.html#6

Still, don't go sporting one near my 83 year old Mom who was a Corporal in the RAF MI-6.
She'll still tear you a new one.

 

No worries, I was just trying to figure out what you meant. My german isnt' great either. I got a few lessons from this smoking hot german girl, but I need a dictionary to write anything.

I got something similar out of Kirk's post. The ? you got, I think is cooler or cool... or something along those lines.

 

My pencil is yellow. It's been a long time since sophomore year German class.

 

St. Florian Patron saint of Poland, and Linz, Austria and Firefighters, according to Wikipedia...



As far as the 60's pop culture and these sysmbols, think about what the Von Dutch logo means to us and what it means to the Britneys and Ashtons... At least we are on the informed side of that one.

 

This is an excellent thread. Some of the history I already knew, but much I didn't. Like my tagline says...

 

Ich mag Torte.

 

Not to nip pick your source to death but the they symbol actually goes farther back than that.

It is aryan in nature. The aryans were Indo-Europeans that moved through what is modern day Iran and Afghanistan and finally ended up in modern India.

This is why the Iranians etc. are so different from the rest of the Mid East. They are not arabs.

Modern Indian and most of the far east cultrue/religion have a huge influence on them from the Vedas, the holy book of the Aryans and that is a Indo-European document...something many Indians want to ignore often. The entire caste system is based on the Vedas.

Hitler and his sicko buddies warped the definition of what an aryan was and instead of being more of a slavic decent changed it to 7 foot tall norse men (totally false).

This is why Hitler and his crew called the master race Aryans and why they reclaimed the swastika as a symbol...but they turned it backwards. They were revisionists historians with a racist agenda.

The aryans were not blonde hair blue eyed North Europeans...what is left of the Aryans are the Indians of today.

Hitlers mythical norse-ish pathfinders he was looking for actually blended and created a race he considered subhuman...the Rus. The Kievian Rus were the slavs that were taken over by north men and eventually became the Russians...a group Hitler hated.

The Nazis always were clods with history...big time.

Neo Nazis are even worse.

People try to take this too far and make it sound like Europeans brought culture etc. to the east...and the guys in the east have a hard time with the Indo-European aspect.

The Aryans were barbarians that had a good rule book that became a part of the tradition in India, they were not civilizers.

 

i read somewhere what many have said already, it was mainly a means of rebelling against mainstream society. i also read that Ed Roth had something to do with bringing it from the surf culture into the hot rod culture. i'll have to dig that book out and read it again.

these symbols are all VERY VERY old. even the swatica is very very old. it was just adopted (as it was by many groups before them) by the Nazis and that is why it carries the stigma it does today...

i'm facinated by history and so this topic iterests me. i may have to do some research on the ole internet later, if i have the time...

 

bleistift=pencile owell, im gehend zu arbeiten

 

Oh, and for what it is worth many histroians are still fighting the battle of what Africans and/or Europeans ended up in Latin America long before the Age of Exploration because of the fact they have pyramids and symbols similar to those found in the Med area etc.

Most historians feel today African seapeople probably ended up in Latin America and that his why they have pyramids etc.

The chances of two groups ending up with such similar concepts with zero contact are pretty slim.

The Africans had ships that could make it across the Atlantic long before the Greeks etc. did.

Greek and Egyption ships only really could operate on the Med.

Thats probably why the symbol in question showed up in Latin America.

 

Here is an IDEAL Spark Plug, make here in Connecticut @ 1910.