Why did the Nazis use the swastika as their symbol?
Until the Nazis started to use the swastika it was basically a symbol having been used for at least 3000 years, that’s even before the ancient Egyptians. There have been archaeological finds dating back to Troy (1000 years BC) showing the swastika, and even native Americans used the swastika in their writing. The Germans started to use the swastika in the late 1800s, before the Nazi movement started, because of its ancient Aryan meanings. Strangely though the Aryan is an antithesis of Hitlers so-called perfect race. To get more info try the links below…
I know of a similar symbol in use in the Sicilian regional flag (it’s a head with three legs sticking out). However I’ve heard that the Nazis got the direction of the thing wrong and this way it actually symbolized bad luck instead of the good fortune it was supposed to represent. And as the others said it’s an old symbol that’s been used on many occasions before. And you should remember that Hitler – though denying it – was part-Jewish which would explain a connection to Eastern religions.
When Adolf Hitler was about 7, the family moved to Lambach, halfway between Linz and Salzburg. There was an old Catholic Benedictine monastery in the town. The ancient monastery was decorated with carved stones and woodwork that included several swastikas. Adolf attended school there and saw them every day. They had been put there in the 1800s by the ruling Abbot as a pun or play on words. His name essentially sounded like the German word for swastika, Hakenkreuz. Later, Hitler recalled this memory from his childhood when he decided on a symbol for the Nazi Party. Misskitty – it is not certain that Hitler was Jewish. There are two people who may have been his grandfather. One was Heidler, from whom Hitler’s father took the surname which was misspelt as Hitler. The other was Jewish. Nazi law defined a Jew as someone who had a Jewish grandparent.
It’s not just eastern. While it’s most prominent usage today is in the east, it used to be fairly wide-spread across Europe and the west as a symbol of good luck. Indeed, it is quite prominent on a number of viking and Celtic designs, where the circular backing more closely resembles the Nazi symbology. However, Hitler (who designed the Nazi flag himself) chose the symbol for it’s eastern origin. The anthropological theory at the time was that the whole group of speakers of the indo-European languages (that is, everyone from English to French, German, Latin as well as the many Indian languages) was descended from a single ‘race’, the Aryans, who originated in India (incidentally, ‘Iran’ means land of the Aryans. But this name is based on more modern and valid theories, and has a rather different meaning of Aryan). Of all their descendants, the Germans held that the Nordic peoples were the most pure-blooded, and therefore possessing superior virtues of mind, body and spirit. It was for
Adolf Hitler personally chose the swastika as the symbol of the Nazi [National Socialist] Party because it represents the German [old German] letter H [h] repeated four times. You will become aware of the letter ‘h’ – [small] in the swastika when you set it at an angle of about 45 degrees which was the most common way it was displayed by the Nazis.
