Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

An innocent reason to display the Iron Cross?

  • 15-04-2023 10:37am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 183 ✭✭


    Getting out of my car yesterday, I glanced at the wheels of the black van stopped in traffic beside me. Four of these valve caps. Now I looked at them and thought…is that a nazi cross? Looked up “Nazi Cross” and up it came.

    But they’re freely available on Amazon, so I’m hoping that there is amy other reason than being a nazi sympathiser that you’d get these. It was a Dublin reg driving through Listowel.



Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 490 ✭✭NattyO


    "The Iron Cross (German: Eisernes Kreuz, abbreviated EK) was a military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). The design, a black cross pattée with a white or silver outline, was derived from the insignia of the medieval Teutonic Order and borne by its knights from the 13th century. As well as being a military medal, it has also been used as an emblem by the Prussian Army, the Imperial German Army, and the Reichswehr of the German Republic, while the Balkenkreuz (bar cross) variant was used by the Wehrmacht. The Iron Cross is now the emblem of the Bundeswehr, the modern German armed forces."

    Maybe he's just a military fan or an admirer of the modern German army?

    Or, of course, it could be that he just liked that look of it and has no idea of it's history.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,291 ✭✭✭✭Gatling


    And this is a CA thread.....



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,044 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    The Nazi cross?


    That's a new one.


    He is probably a metal head FFS.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 183 ✭✭Japandamo



    If nazis are feeling brave enough to drive around publicly it feels kinda current affairsy? Non?

    Look, I saw it and that was the first thing I thought of, and Google knew what I was talking about. Maybe he is a metal head. I would love that for him. Literally what I was hoping for and why I asked. Thank you.

    It takes all sorts I guess. Thanks for the information.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,291 ✭✭✭✭Gatling




  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,853 ✭✭✭Eoinbmw


    Its not a nazi symbol



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,291 ✭✭✭✭Gatling


    Oh look some Nazi German tanks in Germany 🤦



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,772 ✭✭✭ollaetta


    Strictly speaking it's not a Nazi cross without the swastika in the centre and as NattiO pointed out the Iron Cross dates back at least two hundred years and the symbol endures in the modern German army.

    Who knows what your man is into but it reminds me of those biker helmets that you used to see which closely resembled the Second World War German Stalhelm. In fact some of them were modified versions of those helmets. Couldn't wear them now anyway I'd imagine as they wouldn't meet safety standards.

    Veering further off topic, from 1957 German veterans of the Second World War were allowed swap out their medals for a modified version without the swastika and to wear them openly at commemorations. The swastika was and remains banned from public display in Germany.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,839 ✭✭✭✭padd b1975




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,291 ✭✭✭✭Gatling


    The Finnish airforce flew with a Blue Swatika as their logo since 1916/17 until recently



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Harlan Crow or Clarence Thomas should be able to tell us right?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 183 ✭✭Japandamo


    Great. Thanks. And really appreciate that you made such an effort to get your point across without being a massive twat about it.

    Only ever seen it on SS uniforms in film and history lessons. This thread has eased my mind and been an education. Thank you all.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,619 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    You see loads of german and norse symbols on bikes and heavy metal album covers. Just happens that white supremacist types love it too. Im sure theres plenty of crossover. In the same vein, celtic crosses show up a lot too. I wouldnt worry about it until they start ranting about Soros or jews controlling the media.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,994 ✭✭✭Polar101


    On the planes, not since 1945. But it's still in use in the air force unit flags.

    What you're likely referencing to with "until recently" is the change in 2020 where the swastika was removed from air force insignia.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Like Hitler did, it is literally them appropriating the symbols to their own twisted ends. Makes life difficult for people who make innocuous use of them. It let's the supremacist type project like they have way more supporters out there than they really do. Hitler's long dead and his appropriation has people wondering if tyre caps indicate their fellow modern man is a Nazi holdout. It's really quite sinister aftermath. To this day a lot of your more ignorant Christians perceive the intersection of almost any 2 differently lengthed lines as a judeo-christian indicator like Jesus was the first person to come up with a cross.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 490 ✭✭NattyO


    Huh? German and Norse symbols and Celtic crosses on album covers "let's [sic] white supremacists project like they have way more supporters than they really do" - What?!

    You post some fairly outlandish claims on here, but that's waaaaaay out there!

    Who knew Enya was a secret nazi 🙄



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,232 ✭✭✭TooTired123


    Nazis, Nazis everywhere.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,581 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    A load of skateboarder brands used the iron cross in their logos in the early 00s. Don't know if they still do as I'm a tad old to be buying my clothes in skateshops now.

    I assumed it was American brands not realising that it could be problematic rather thwn anything else, never bothered checking as I just didn't buy those ones



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Not suggesting the album or band or the church are supremacists, but supremacists will try to recruit others etc. by propagandizing that the symbol appearing everywhere (like in church, and on band albums) are through tinfoil hat logic, support for their own cause.

    Here an OP saw a normal german symbol and his first thought was "Nazi?"

    Because of propaganda and cultural appropriation by a hate movement.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 490 ✭✭NattyO


    Jaysus that's about the most paranoid thing I've read on here, and that's saying something.

    It's like saying communists will use the proliferation of red cars on the roads to recruit members.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Nothing is or was ever stopping them from attempting to do so. You yourself just tacitly associated the color red with communism.

    It's a fine example you mentioned, one that comes up in US politics frequently, automobiles being so ingrained in the culture now though not specifically color. The Tesla cars for example are politicized (they were 'pussy-liberal' machines, now Trump has setup shop in Texas and done all his Trump/Twitter nonsense so they've started being derided as 'freedumb mobiles' etc.), so are the Prius lineup. Politics are assumed about you by what you drive.

    There was also a big-to-do during the 2008 Presidential election about flag lapel pins. Politicians tried to insinuate that anyone who wasn't wearing a United States flag pin is a socialist-commie loving democrat and anyone wearing one was a doing the right thing etc. then from there tried to twist any Democrat seen with the pin (or who was always wearing one) as capitulating to their nonsense.

    Do we even need to get on to Red Hats vs. Pink Hats? We're not far removed from a race-war over cone-shaped nipples vs. nippels with ripples:

    Hell the official color of Breast Cancer Awareness month is Pink. Ireland, on March 17 the color of support is Green the world over, even if you accidentally just wore the green shirt from yesterday again or always owned a green car, someone goes 'aha! green, I don't have to pinch you' etc - the Irish have culturally ingrained people to link the two, the color to the date.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 490 ✭✭NattyO


    It's clear that once one begins to obsess over something, they see their perceived enemies in every shadow.

    Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Precisely! Sometimes a set of Tyre plugs is just a set of tyre plugs. But decades, a century on from the appropriation by eg. the Nazi Party, people are still left wondering if when they see an Iron Cross it might be a Nazi symbol. That's the lasting damage of cultural misappropriation.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Speaking of red hats and symbolism and bikers this fits here




  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,777 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    As a historian my 2c: Iron Crosses in one form or the other had been in vogue since the time of the national renewal against the Napolonic invasion of the German states. That some Progressives seem to invest this, and a host of other symbols such as the Brendan cross or the OK symbol, with some sort of deeper signfignance then this either reflects a rather Manichean world view or it could have an innocent reason.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,366 ✭✭✭Star Bingo


    We take to crosses of any variety celtic; christian this one is a feature ok .. eh never really associated it with much beyond yknow many of us are quite religious, contrary to the portrayal maybe something got lost in translation.

    -good guys don’t always wear white metalheads are generally the good kids around here so who cares. Tbh there’s a little girl up and down here after school awful keen to break out her skateboard, turning tricks is a sight to behold. Not hanging around corners etc or with gangs but I notice some similar branding on there too maybe you should pursue her on it?!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,619 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Just to be clear, I used to listen to a lot of metal and I'm into bikes, so I'm not branding half the people I know as neo-nazis, but I notice the symbols and who is using them. Not suggesting the Highway Hawk catalogue is a neo-nazi recruiting tool. The Celtic cross one is pretty common in the US whereas here they're pretty common cultural symbols. There used to be a website called Stormfront that got talked about a lot on Boards a few years back and their logo was a Celtic cross. People respond to symbols. Stick an eye in a triangle and watch the conspiracy loons go wild.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,044 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    The Iron Cross as pointed out is and still has a longer history than just it's use, as an already established military insignia, by National Socialists in the 30s.


    Same as other strands of Socialism use the hammer and sickle, Anarchists use the letter A.

    Red and Black is a common colour pattern for all the Socialist strands above.


    Just because one has a red and black flag doesn't mean you are a communist cheering on Russia in Ukraine. China threatening Taiwan etc.


    There is more to a thing than any symbolic link it may have.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,366 ✭✭✭Star Bingo


    -

    -well at least you can’t invert the thing?

    See it as a plus. +



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,044 ✭✭✭✭Danzy




  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,866 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Just to quickly note that the Iron Cross is still not exactly a 'normal German symbol', it's not the kind of thing you would see openly worn on the streets by 'ordinary people'. (source:living there currently)



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 12,866 Mod ✭✭✭✭riffmongous


    Ah Stormfront, those were the days.

    It's still fairly rare to see any right wingers using anything more than the most basic cross-in-a-circle / crosshair form of the celtic cross though, imo you can generally guess fairly easily from the depiction of the symbol as to the intent of the user



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 15,044 ✭✭✭✭Danzy


    Maybe but you'd see versions of it at a rammstein concert, if Metallica or an awful lot of metal bands were in town, if you lived near a German army base.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,619 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    I think part of what gives some of these symbols their strong association with [insert ideology] is people overzealously policing them. Like people losing it seeing swastika-like symbols in India where people don't obsess over the Second World War. The flag of the Isle of Man has been mistaken for a Nazi symbol more than once. The Finnish Hakaristi is effectively banned in some places.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,413 ✭✭✭✭Flinty997


    I know this was explained previously.

    Open to correction but I don't think it was ever a part of the uniform. It's was a military award (medal) so that's why you saw it uniforms. The medal wasn't just awarded to the SS. It could be awarded to anyone in the military and on rare occasions civilians.

    It was awarded for "... for exceptional courage in the field..."

    It has become a symbol of German military tradition going back to the Teutonic knights.

    It's not a SS symbol or a Nazi one.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,875 ✭✭✭✭Larbre34


    You should probably take a peak these contemporary Luftwaffe aircraft...

    The Black Iron Cross dates from 1813 and a decoration awarded by the royal court of Prussia.

    The Nazis embellished it with Indian swastikas and what not, but the Cross itself is not a Nazi symbol and today is the central emblem of the German Federal Armed Forces, or Bundeswehr.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,154 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    That's not a "nazi" cross. It's an old symbol that both pre-dates the Third Reich and was also the symbol of the German military post war.


    The symbol is an Iron Cross, which is an old Prussian decoration. It's been the symbol in use in the German military since the 1800's.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,154 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    The hakaristi was still displayed on some flags and whatnot but the Finns stopped using it as their main aircraft identifier in 1945. They changed to a blue and white roundel.




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,291 ✭✭✭✭Gatling




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,154 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    The Nazi's never really tried to appropriate the Iron Cross. In fact they wanted to supplant it in all cases with the Hakenkreuz. The military were generally uncomfortable about giving up an old symbol of their regalia, so a compromise was found in the Balkenkreuz.


    In fact, a number of German pilots refused to fly in aircraft adorned with the Hakenkreuz and had the ground crew over paint the symbol. Below is a crashed BF109E-4 in England in 1940.


    The Nazi's later made this act a punishable offence for military personnel. But even up until 1945, some pilots defied that order. There's photo's of BF109K's (the final variant) without the symbol.

    The Iron Cross decoration was also compromised against the military's wishes and had the swastika emblazoned at the centre of the medal. But the shape of the medal itself remained in the same dimensions as previous versions. The German military stopped awarding the Iron Cross to personnel after 1945 though. It was replaced with a more generic (and boring IMO) cross.



  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,154 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH




  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    If there was an ever a thread to demonstrate what a “snowflake” is, it’s this. Worried about nazis because they see a cross.



Advertisement