What Are The Origins Of The Nazi Swastika?

“… I am now able to prove that … the 卍, which I find in Émile Burnouf’s Sanscrit lexicon, under the name of “suastika,” and with the meaning εὖ ἐστι, or as the sign of good wishes, were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious symbols of the very greatest importance among the early progenitors of the Aryan races in Bactria and in the villages of the Oxus, at a time when Germans, Indians, Pelasgians, Celts, Persians, Slavonians and Iranians still formed one nation and spoke one language.”
Heinrich Schliemann, Troy and Its Remains, 1875

The earliest known swastika, a delicate carving on a mammoth-tusk figurine of a bird, dates back an astonishing 15,000 years.

This ancient artifact, unearthed in present-day Ukraine, hints at the symbol’s primordial connection to fertility, life, and the natural world. It wasn’t the isolated whim of a long-vanished artist; similar motifs from the Paleolithic era have been discovered across Europe, suggesting the swastika’s deep roots in the continent’s prehistory.

The word ‘swastika’ itself, however, hails from a much later period and a different corner of the world.

“Carry your luck in your pocket. The Swastika is the oldest cross and recognised good luck sign in the world.”
From a 1910s American advertisement for Swastika brand tools

The origin of the term ‘Swastika’ is crystal clear.

It derives from the ancient Sanskrit language, a combination of ‘su’ meaning ‘good’ – and ‘asti’, meaning ‘to be’.

Together, they form ‘svastika’ – a word that translates, quite literally, as ‘well-being’.

In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, the swastika remains a profoundly sacred symbol to this day, an everyday sight on temple gates, in religious texts, and during sacred ceremonies. In these faiths, it is a multivalent emblem, representing everything from the eternal, cyclical nature of the universe to good fortune and the auspicious footprints of the Buddha.