What Are The Origins Of The Nazi Swastika?

Q: What Are The Origins Of The Nazi Swastika?

Ancient and global — the earliest known swastika is 15,000 years old, and its Sanskrit name means well-being. German völkisch groups, drawn by Heinrich Schliemann's flawed Aryan theories, adopted it before the Nazis did.

“… 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.

From Hate With Love

“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.

In Jainism, it is a key element of the faith’s flag, while in Hinduism, the direction of the symbol’s arms carries different meanings.

A clockwise swastika, the svastika, represents the sun and good luck, while its counter-clockwise counterpart, the sauvastika, symbolises night and the tantric aspects of the goddess Kali.

But the swastika was by no means confined to the Indian subcontinent or Ukraine.

It was a remarkably cosmopolitan symbol, popping up in the archeological records of ancient Troy, on Mesopotamian coins, and in the art of the Indus Valley Civilization.

It graced the pottery of early Christian communities and was woven into the textiles of the Coptic Christians of Egypt.

It appeared on the ancient lands of the Caucasus, in Neolithic China, and among various Native American cultures. For the Hopi, it was a symbol of wanderings; for the Navajo, a sacred element in healing rituals.

The swastika’s journey into European consciousness, and its eventual, fateful encounter with German nationalism, was a product of the 19th century’s fascination with archeology and the search for ancient origins. The man who arguably did more than any other to popularize the swastika in the West was the larger-than-life German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann.

In the 1870s, during his swashbuckling, and often reckless, excavations of what he believed to be the ancient city of Troy, Schliemann uncovered over 1,800 instances of the swastika on pottery shards and other artifacts.

Eager to connect his discoveries to a grand historical narrative, he posited that the symbol was a link between the ancient Trojans, the Greeks, and the early Germanic tribes of his own homeland. He saw it as a powerful religious symbol of his ‘remote ancestors’, a key to unlocking the shared history of a supposedly unified ‘Aryan’ culture that stretched from India to Europe.

Schliemann’s theories, eagerly seized upon by other European thinkers and scholars, set the stage for the swastika’s ideological transformation.

His work, filtered through the lens of a rising tide of nationalism and racial theory, helped to reframe the swastika not as a universal symbol of well-being, but as a specific emblem of ‘Aryan’ heritage.

Schliemann would even have a house built Panepistimiou Street in Athens by 1880, decorated with swastika symbols and motifs including in the ironwork railing and gates, the window bars, the ceiling fresco of the entrance hall, and the entire floor of one room. This still stands – as the Numismatic Museum of Athens.

Heinrich Schliemann’s was a fateful and flawed interpretation, one that ignored the symbol’s truly global and multicultural history.

It also proved to be irresistible to the burgeoning völkisch movements of Germany, which were searching for a potent symbol to represent their romanticised vision of a racially pure and glorious past.

The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the swastika’s popularity explode across Europe and North America.

It became a ubiquitous good luck charm, appearing on everything from postcards and advertising to the uniforms of the American military and even Coca-Cola products.

Boy scout troops and girls’ clubs used it, and architects incorporated it into their designs. For a time, it was as benign and commonplace as a four-leaf clover.

But this age of innocence was not to last.

As the swastika became increasingly entwined with German nationalism, its meaning began to curdle. Its ancient, positive connotations were being steadily eroded, and the stage was set for its complete and terrifying appropriation by a new political force that would drag the symbol, and the world, into an abyss of unimaginable horror.

What had once been a symbol of life was about to become a symbol of death.

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The Nazi Swastika - The Hakenkreuz

“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.”
Adolf Hitler describing the Nazi flag

The swastika’s journey from a global symbol of good fortune to an emblem of hate was a gradual process, but it was one that was deliberately and masterfully orchestrated by the Nazi party. The choice of the swastika was no accident; it was a carefully calculated act of political branding, a cynical appropriation of a symbol that was already steeped in a powerful, albeit misunderstood, mythology.

Adolf Hitler, a man who understood the visceral power of imagery and spectacle, saw in the swastika the perfect vehicle to convey the core tenets of his burgeoning movement: racial purity, nationalistic fervor, and an invented link to a glorious, “Aryan” past.

By the early 20th century, the swastika was already a common sight in Germany, having been adopted by various nationalist and völkisch groups.

These groups were drawn to the symbol because of the flawed theories of men like Heinrich Schliemann, who had linked it to a supposed “Aryan master race.”

For them, the swastika was a potent symbol of German superiority, a visible link to a romanticized, racially pure heritage that they believed had been sullied by foreign influences.

Hitler was not the first to use the swastika in this context, but he was the one who would cement its association with a particularly virulent brand of antisemitic nationalism.

In his rambling, hate-filled manifesto, ‘Mein Kampf’, Hitler took personal credit for the design of the Nazi flag, a design he claimed to have perfected after numerous attempts. It was actually introduced to the Nazi Party in August 1919, by a dentist named Friedrich Krohn, the owner of a large private library much used by Hitler.

The Nazi Party flag – described by Hitler as ‘a white disk on a red field, with the swastika in the middle’ – was designed by a Munich goldsmith named Josy Füss, who presented numerous options, with Hitler personally choosing which one pleased him the most.

Both Krohn and Füss would soon leave the Nazi Party – Füss in February 1920, following a disagreement over Hitler’s use of political violence, and Krohn in 1921, in protest against Hitler’s dominance within the movement.

Thus surrendering the legacy of the introduction of the swastika to the Nazi Party and the design of the flag to the later pervasive argument that Hitler himself had been entirely responsible for both.

Perhaps, though, Hitler was recalling a memory from his youth: the Benedictine choir school at Lambach Abbey, Upper Austria, which he attended for several months as a boy, had a swastika chiselled into the monastery portal and also the wall above the spring grotto in the courtyard by 1868.

Their origin was the personal coat of arms of Theoderich Hagn, abbot of the monastery in Lambach, which bore a golden swastika with slanted points on a blue field.

The choice of colors on the Nazi flag was a deliberate evocation of the old German Imperial flag (black, white, and red), a move calculated to appeal to the nationalistic sentiments of those who longed for a return to Germany’s pre-World War I glory.

By embedding the swastika within this familiar color scheme, Hitler was able to visually link his new, radical movement to Germany’s imperial past, giving it a veneer of historical legitimacy.

The resulting flag was a masterpiece of propaganda.

Its stark, simple design was easily recognisable and endlessly reproducible. The swastika, a black Hakenkreuz (hooked cross) rotated 45 degrees, was placed in a white circle on a blood-red background. The resulting design was dynamic, aggressive, and impossible to ignore. It was a visual representation of the Nazi worldview: the swastika, representing the “Aryan” race, standing in stark contrast to the white circle of nationalism, all set against a background of red, symbolizing the social ideals of the movement.

By the summer of 1920, this flag was officially adopted as the symbol of the Nazi Party, and it quickly became ubiquitous at party rallies, on posters, and in the party’s ever-growing array of uniforms and insignia.

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, the swastika was elevated from a party emblem to a national symbol.

On March 12th 1933, a decree was issued stating that the old German Imperial flag was to be flown alongside the swastika flag. This was a transitional phase, a way of placating the more traditional elements of German society while slowly but surely cementing the swastika’s place in the national consciousness.

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 final step in the swastika’s complete and total appropriation came at the annual Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in September 1935.

At this carefully choreographed spectacle of nationalist fervor, the infamous Nuremberg Race Laws were passed, stripping Jews of their citizenship and forbidding marriage or sexual relations between them and “citizens of German or kindred blood.”

At this same rally, the Reich Flag Law was passed, declaring the swastika flag to be the one and only national flag of Germany. The ancient symbol of good fortune was now the official emblem of a state that was systematically embedding racism and antisemitism into its very legal fabric.

The Nazis understood that to truly control a nation, you had to control its symbols. The swastika was everywhere, on every public building, on every uniform, on every piece of official stationery. It was a constant, inescapable reminder of the Nazi party’s all-encompassing power. What had once been a sacred sign in Hinduism, a symbol of wanderings for the Hopi, and a good luck charm for countless others was now the chilling trademark of a totalitarian regime.

The swastika’s long, rich, and multicultural history had been violently erased, its meaning twisted into something unrecognizable.

The act of cultural theft was complete.

A symbol of ‘well-being’ had become the ultimate symbol of hate.

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The Modern Usage Of The Swastika

“The swastika stands for National Socialism and is also a völkisch, Nordic symbol denoting unequivocal opposition to all that is un-German, corrupting, and generally Jewish. But this anti-semitic meaning has been associated with the swastika only since it was adopted by the völkisch leagues as a symbol of their struggle. History does not provide any grounds for the anti-semitic interpretation of this symbol.”
Engelbert Huber, from an article published in ‘Das ist Nationalsozialismus: Organisation und Weltanschauung der NSDAP’ (1933)

The fall of the Third Reich in 1945 did not erase the swastika from the world, but it did forever alter its meaning in the West.

The symbol, once a ubiquitous sign of good fortune, was now inextricably linked to the horrors of the Holocaust and the devastation of the Second World War. Its legacy has been complex and contested ever since, a story of legal battles, cultural misunderstandings, and the enduring question of whether a symbol so thoroughly corrupted can ever be redeemed.

A surprising and often misunderstood chapter in the post-war story of the swastika can be found in the skies over Finland.

The Finnish Air Force used a blue swastika on a white background as its official emblem from its creation in 1918 until 2020. This was not a gesture of Nazi sympathy, but a historical coincidence.

The Swedish Count Eric von Rosen, who gifted the Finnish White Army its first aircraft in 1918, had painted his personal good luck charm—a blue swastika—on the wings of the plane.

The Finns adopted the symbol, and it predated the Nazi’s use of the swastika by several years.

For decades after the war, the Finnish Air Force continued to use the swastika, albeit in a more limited capacity, a curious anachronism that often baffled outsiders. The decision to finally, and quietly, retire the symbol in 2020 was a tacit acknowledgment of the inescapable power of its Nazi association.

Incidentally, Latvia also adopted the swastika for its Air Force in 1918/1919 and continued its use until the Soviet occupation in 1940.

In Germany, the response to the swastika’s legacy has been far more clear-cut.

In the aftermath of the war, the Allied occupying forces systematically destroyed Nazi iconography, and the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany embedded a prohibition on these symbols into its legal code.

Today, the German Criminal Code, specifically Section 86a, outlaws the “use of symbols of unconstitutional organizations.”

This includes the swastika, the SS runes, and the Nazi salute.

The law is not absolute; exceptions are made for educational, artistic, and scientific purposes, which is why the swastika can be seen in historical films and museum exhibits. But its use as a symbol of political propaganda is strictly forbidden, with punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment.

Interestingly, the ban specifically targets the Nazi Hakenkreuz. The traditional, upright swastika, when used in a clear religious context by Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain communities, is not illegal.

This is a nuanced but crucial distinction, a legal recognition of the symbol’s multifaceted history.

The legal landscape in other countries is quite different.

In the United States, for example, the display of the swastika, however hateful, is generally protected under the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech.

This has led to numerous legal battles and public controversies, as the right to free expression often clashes with the desire to protect communities from symbols of hate.

The United Kingdom also has a more permissive approach, though the display of the swastika can be prosecuted under laws prohibiting the incitement of racial hatred. This difference in legal frameworks highlights a fundamental philosophical divergence: while Germany has prioritized the protection of its democracy from the symbols of its darkest chapter, the United States has placed a higher value on the principle of free speech, even when that speech is deeply offensive.

Can the swastika ever be ‘saved’ from its Nazi past?

In the West, the answer is almost certainly no. The symbol is too deeply intertwined with the trauma of the 20th century, its image too seared into the collective consciousness as a representation of genocide and totalitarianism.

Its use by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups has only reinforced this association, turning it into a permanent emblem of hate.

For Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains, who continue to use the swastika as a sacred symbol, this is a source of ongoing pain and frustration.

The swastika is not the only symbol to have been irreversibly tarnished.

The so-called Roman salute is now inextricably linked to fascism.

The burning cross, with its roots in Scottish clan rituals, has been transformed into a terrifying symbol of racial terror by the Ku Klux Klan.

In Germany, other symbols are also forbidden, including the Sig rune of the SS, the Wolfsangel rune used by some Nazi units, and the Celtic cross, which has been co-opted by neo-Nazi groups.

These prohibitions are a reminder of a nation’s ongoing struggle to reckon with the ghosts of its past.

Symbols do not have inherent, immutable meanings. They are what we make them.

And for the swastika, the stain of its Nazi incarnation remains, for now, indelible.

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Conclusion

“Absolutist systems…represent all the events of history as depending upon the great first causes linked by the chain of fatality, and which, as it were, suppress men from the history of the human race.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, French diplomat, political philosopher, and historian (1856)

The Swastika’s origins are ancient and diverse, evidence of a shared human impulse to create symbols of hope, prosperity, and the cyclical nature of life.

For millennia, the hooked cross was a benign, even sacred, presence in cultures across the globe, from the Indian subcontinent to the Americas.

Its Sanskrit name, svastika, literally means ‘well-being’, a poignant and tragic irony given its 20th-century legacy. The swastika was a truly global symbol, belonging to no single culture, but to all of humanity.

The Nazis’ meticulous and all-encompassing use of the swastika, embedding it into every facet of German life, ensured that it would be forever associated with their reign of terror.

What was once in many places seen as a symbol of life became an emblem of death, its original meaning brutally erased.

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