The Nazi hakenkreuz is not a swastika
I can't believe I still have to say this in 2022
**Originally published on my website March 28, 2022**
*Trigger Warning* Holocaust, anti-semitism, racism, Hinduphobia, genocide, white supremacy, mention of rape culture, slavery, and pedophilia
The image you see above is the symbol of the Nazis in WWII. It is infamous for what it stood for — the genocide of anyone who didn’t fit into the Nazis’ idea of the “master race”, particularly Jews, Romani, Queer and Trans peoples, anyone not white, and disabled people including people with mental disabilities even if they were white. This symbol is called by Nazis a hakenkreuz. They always called it a hakenkreuz. That means “hooked cross”. You can go to any neo-Nazi website today and their merchandize will be labelled hakenkreuz. Like this Nazi merchandize right here:
Or this Nazi merchandize:
Or this Nazi merchandize:
Or this Nazi merchandize:
![White background with a blue title at top left: “Black Blood Nazi flag”. Top right it reads: “$15.00”. Below on the left is text in black font that reads: “This is a black and white version of the Blutfahne, or Blood Flag. The Blood Flag is the Nazi German hakenkreuz flag that was used in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the SA members who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects […]”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe6fd6aee-e3cd-4c9b-9fca-3a688a985c4b_1404x808.png "White background with a blue title at top left: “Black Blood Nazi flag”. Top right it reads: “$15.00”. Below on the left is text in black font that reads: “This is a black and white version of the Blutfahne, or Blood Flag. The Blood Flag is the Nazi German hakenkreuz flag that was used in the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the SA members who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects […]”")
It’s not difficult to find this information. Anyone with access to the internet can find it in less than 15 seconds. It’s easy to know that the Nazis never called their symbol swastika. They called it hakenkreuz. They still call it hakenkreuz to this day.
So why does the entire progressive community in the west continue to call the hakenkreuz a “swastika” which smears an ancient symbol of Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains (also known collectively as Dharmics) despite the fact that those Dharmics had nothing to do with the Nazi holocaust or white supremacy?
Swastika, also spelled svastika, is a Sanskrit word which comes from the Indian subcontinent. It is an ancient sacred symbol for Dharmics going back thousands of years and it means auspiciousness, good luck, and positive energy. Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains each have their own particular positive meanings for this symbol respective to their communities alongside the general meaning I shared. It was universally known as a symbol of positive energy, good luck, and auspiciousness.
This is the Indian Sanskrit swastika that is revered by Dharmics:
This symbol is not only used by Dharmics. Many ancient cultures all over the world have utilized this symbol in some way for thousands of years and had their own names for it, stylized in their own particular cultural context. Ancient Celtic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon culture called their symbol a “fylfot”. The Greeks called their symbol a “gammadian”. The Chinese called their symbol a “wan”. The Japanese called their symbol “manji”. The Navajo called their symbol “whirling logs”. All over the world, Indigenous cultures revered this symbol within their own cultural context, with their own stories, associating it with goodwill, peace, auspiciousness, nature, and the cycle of life. The symbol was universally seen as a symbol of good and was never used for violence for thousands of years.
The symbol was universally seen as a symbol of good and was never used for violence for thousands of years.
Here are young Navajo athletes wearing their ancient whirling logs symbol on their basketball uniform in 1909:
So why would this universal symbol of peace and goodwill, known by so many names in so many cultures, come to only be called the Sanskrit term swastika? And why is that ancient Sanskrit term associated with Nazis instead of the Dharmics of the subcontinent where it originated? The answer to all these questions is simple: White Christian supremacy.
The answer to all these questions is simple: White Christian supremacy.
Adolf Hitler first saw the hakenkreuz symbol as a young student in Lambach Abbey which was a Christian monastery.
Edward Bellamy in 2009 shared details about Hitler’s exposure to the symbol at Lambach Abbey:
“At Lambach he saw the swastika engraved on the four corners of the monastery, where it had been sculpted several years before, pursuant to orders of the abbot, Theodorich Hagen. Next to the symbol were the letters “AL” for “Abbey Lambach” and the letters “TH” for Theodorich Hagen, and the year 1869. It is interesting to note that the four letters on the Abbey emblem included the initials “AH.” When young “AH” (April 20, 1889 — April 30, 1945) became a student at Lambach, Father Hagen had already died, but the swastikas Hagen ordered carved were still there.”
Bellamy goes on to explain:
“In the German language, the symbol is not called a swastika. Most people do not know that a cross was worshiped as the notorious symbol of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party [Nazis]. The group called their symbol the Hakenkreuz, not the swastika. Hakenkreuz means “hooked cross.” It is one of the biggest cover-ups in history.”
“It is one of the biggest cover-ups in history.”
The hakenkreuz is in many Christian churches all over the Christian world. That makes sense because it will have been appropriated from earlier Indigenous cultures of those lands who were wiped out by church committed genocides through ethnic cleansing, slavery, and forced conversions to Christianity.
The hakenkreuz is thus found on early Christian churches in Rome in the 4th century CE. Here is one example where Moses is featured with a hooked cross on his robe:
The Christian church has throughout history appropriated the ideas and cultural symbols from older Indigenous cultures while forcibly converting those populations. This was to make conversion more bearable for those peoples but genocide is clearly never bearable and cultural appropriation of sacred symbols by colonizing imperialists only adds insult to injury. This is why Europeans are so messed up, by the way. They hold this trauma but never talk about it.
The hakenkruez is a Christian symbol just as Hitler was a Christian man who learned his anti-semitism from Christianity like every other white person in the world. From Catholicism to Protestantism to Nazism, Christianity throughout history has committed genocides of Jewish people. Martin Luther, the famous medieval German “reformer” of Christianity who started the “Protestant” movement, told his followers in 1543 to burn down Jewish synagogues, schools, and homes. He said to take away all Jewish prayer books and writings, and that safe conduct for traveling Jews should be abolished. He said that Jews should be ejected forever from the country.
Consider: If Jews have their homes and schools and synagogues burned down, and their writings taken from them, and are ejected from a country forever and traveling Jews, ie. the Jews being ejected from the country in massive ethnic cleansing, cannot be given safe passage, that would logically mean the large scale slaughter of Jewish people. It’s genocide, plain and simple.
Many Christians all over the world revere Martin Luther and seem to ignore his genocidal anti-semitism.
Many Christians all over the world revere Martin Luther and seem to ignore his genocidal anti-semitism.
So how do we know that the Nazis were following Luther’s teachings? Well, other than their base being mainly German protestants, their Christian rhetoric, their rabid anti-semitism, their Christian symbolism in crosses and hooked crosses, and their book burnings of Jewish literature, there’s another clue. The Nazis went on a killing spree of Jews on November 10, 1938. It was called Kristallnacht and on that night the Nazis torched Jewish synagogues, homes, businesses, schools, and killed almost 100 Jews. After Kristallnacht, approximately 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Kristallnacht was on November 10 which is Martin Luther’s birthday.
Kristallnacht was on November 10 which is Martin Luther’s birthday.
Kristallnacht was said to be the start of the actual violent persecution of Jews by Nazis which they had hinted at heavily years earlier in the form of rhetoric, slander, boycotts of Jewish businesses, and repressive policies.
Meanwhile, Hitler’s book Mein Kampf was translated into English by James Murphy, an English Christian. His translation and other English translations were done by Christian men who portrayed Hitler as a “Pagan” instead of a Christian, and his hakenkreuz symbol as a “swastika” instead of a hooked cross, thereby removing awkward Christian origins of Hitler’s political ideology. Here is an in depth explanation showing where and how this deliberate mistranslation happened. Due to Murphy’s efforts and the efforts of all translators since, including contemporary Google translate, Christianity and Christian anti-semitism has escaped the blame for Nazism. It doesn’t take long to see through the lies, though. Hitler’s Christian ideology comes up repeatedly in Mein Kampf but everyone knows leftists were never going to actually read it.
Hitler’s Christian ideology comes up repeatedly in Mein Kampf but everyone knows leftists were never going to actually read it.
As a sidenote, contemporary neo-Nazis don’t favor James Murphy’s translation of Mein Kampf. This neo-Nazi site stated their reasons for rejecting it in an article in 2015.
Many Hindus don’t know this history of where the Nazi hakenkreuz came from and the Christian supremacist Hinduphobic reason for why it came to be called a swastika. That’s why they go along with the mainstream narrative that the Nazis appropriated it from Hinduism. The irony is that of all the long list of crimes against humanity that the Nazis did commit, appropriating the swastika from Hindus wasn’t one of them because their symbol was never a swastika.
Meanwhile, Christian ideology steeped in hate gets away with its millennia long crimes against humanity. Hindus are targeted and smeared and attacked as scapegoats directly because of this Christian ideological hate. This is despite the fact that Indians actually contributed the largest volunteer army to fight Hitler and the Nazis in WWII. The Indian army of WWII was the largest volunteer army in history: 2.5 million. Of that largest volunteer army in history in the world, the vast majority of the Indian warriors were Hindus. They fought WWII from the very beginning of the war in 1939 to the very end in 1945. Without the contribution of the Indian army, it would have been impossible for the allies to win WWII. US citizens were not only drafted into the war but their country didn’t even enter the war until much later when they were forced into it by Japan in 1941. Contrary to popular opinion about how the US were such heroes for humanity, they dropped nuclear bombs on Japan, killing hundreds of thousands of mostly civilians, in two of the most horrific war crimes in history. What does it mean? It means that Hindus fought and won the war against Nazis without ever committing genocide, and yet Hindus are smeared as Nazis while genocidal white men are lauded as WWII heroes.
It means that Hindus fought and won the war against Nazis without ever committing genocide, and yet Hindus are smeared as Nazis while genocidal white men are lauded as WWII heroes.
This is also in the context of British genocide of Indians, particularly Hindus, in the Indian subcontinent. During WWII itself, 3–4 million Bengalis were starved to death in a British engineered famine during WWII. This was just one of the murderous events the British created to kill off Indians, particularly Hindus. It’s estimated that the British killed at least 60 million Indians during their rule of India in deliberately engineered famines. They also created multiple pandemics, abducted and trafficked children and women into sexual slavery, and enforced other types of slavery and indentured servitude upon Indians. The British transported Indians out of the country under the pretext of giving them jobs but really sending them to colonial plantations in the Caribbean, South America, Fiji and other places where they were forced into slavery and indentured servitude.
It’s estimated that the British killed at least 60 million Indians during their rule of India in deliberately engineered famines.
Hindus being smeared as Nazis is also despite the fact that of all the countries in the world, India is the only land where Jews have lived for thousands of years and never been persecuted by the majority population. Hindu majority India, in fact, sheltered and protected Jews for centuries against oppression from Romans, Christians, and Muslims, and provided them with land, food, safe passage, respect, means to conduct thriving businesses, and goodwill.
India has in fact always been a refuge for multiple communities fleeing persecution. Yet Hindus still get smeared again and again with a deliberate mistranslation of hakenkreuz.
The US government continued this mistranslation of hakenkreuz for exactly the same reason: To let white Christian people get away with white Christian supremacy. US foreign policy explicitly set out to demonize and harm Hindus and one such policy was the Bengali Hindu genocide. President Nixon and his Secretary of State Kissinger directly aided and abetted in this genocide by arming the Pakistani army which was an Islamic supremacist army. That army murdered over 2 million Hindus in 1971 alone. There are recordings of Nixon and Kissinger talking about how Indians needed “a famine” or “a war”, plotting how they were going to genocide Hindus. Note that Nixon was a Quaker, a so-called “peaceful” Christian denomination. Note that Kissinger came to the US as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi genocide. They both went on to participate in war crimes specifically against Hindus.
US foreign policy explicitly set out to demonize and harm Hindus and one such policy was the Bengali Hindu genocide.
Recently in January 2022, the Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau labelled the trucker convoy as people waving “swastikas” because some people at that protest were seen waving the Nazi hakenkreuz. Another Canadian politician, Sikh member of parliament Jagmeet Singh, continued the smear by saying the swastika was a hate symbol like the confederate flag. Immediately after Trudeau and Singh made their comments, in the span of only ten days at least six Hindu temples were attacked, looted, and desecrated. When Hindus spoke out about this violence, they also expressed concern for the Sikh community being attacked because white people don’t know the difference between modern day Hindus and Sikhs. Note that while a Canadian Sikh politician was demonizing a Hindu symbol and talking about banning it, the Hindu community was looking out for the safety of Sikhs.
Immediately after Trudeau and Singh made their comments, in the span of only ten days at least six Hindu temples were attacked, looted, and desecrated.
By the way, even before this controversy, Hindus were under attack in Trudeau’s Canada. Two temples were attacked in November 2021 and that’s just what has been reported in this time. It is possible that in Canada just like in the US, multiple anti-Hindu attacks take place that never get reported. I know of multiple attacks from Hindu community members all over the US that never get any mainstream media coverage. Hindus in the US don’t report hate crimes against them because they know no one in the western mainstream will care.
So a progressive like Jagmeet Singh scapegoated a particular community and then sat back while that community’s temples, homes, and lives were attacked. Who does that sound like? It sounds so familiar. Who has behaved like that in history?
Hindus in the US don’t report hate crimes against them because they know no one in the western mainstream will care.
The smear campaign of the swastika was so thorough and tragic that during WWII the Navajo, an Indigenous nation in Turtle Island (that’s the continent known to colonizers as North America) even signed a declaration that they were giving up their use of their “whirling log” symbol even though they had used that symbol for generations. In other words the Navajo were indoctrinated into thinking that because of what Nazis were doing with a Christian hakenkreuz, Navajo people had to give up their own ancient cultural symbol.
This picture above is a perfect example of white supremacist men successfully convincing Indigenous people to give up their own culture to “save white people”.
This picture above is a perfect example of white supremacist men successfully convincing Indigenous people to give up their own culture to “save white people”.
Hindus, however, have not fallen for this white supremacist psychological manipulation either during WWII or now. We have refused to bow to the white man’s smear campaign. Hindus continue to use our swastika symbol of auspiciousness precisely because we wish all of humanity goodwill. The only goodwill that exists in this white supremacist world is the resistance and survival of Indigenous Black and brown cultures against colonial trauma and white supremacy.
Being long in dialogue with the Jewish community, Hindus have received support from them in this matter. This is what Jewish delegates publicly declared at a Hindu-Jewish summit in 2008:
“Swastika is an ancient and greatly auspicious symbol of the Hindu tradition. It is inscribed on Hindu temples, ritual altars, entrances, and even account books. A distorted version of this sacred symbol was misappropriated by the Third Reich in Germany, and abused as an emblem under which heinous crimes were perpetrated against humanity, particularly the Jewish people. The participants recognize that this symbol is, and has been sacred to Hindus for millennia, long before its misappropriation.” — Jerusalem, 2008
Even though the Rabbis at this summit misunderstood the origins of the Nazi hakenkreuz — likely because the Hindus were also unaware of the Christian origins — they recognized the right of Hindus to continue using their ancient symbol of goodwill. If conservative Jewish Rabbis could understand that, why is it so hard for western progressives to understand?
Hindus continue to use our swastika symbol of auspiciousness precisely because we wish all of humanity goodwill. The only goodwill that exists in this white supremacist world is the resistance and survival of Indigenous Black and brown cultures against colonial trauma and white supremacy.
So-called “anti-racist” western progressives are so ignorant and so racist that everywhere they go in the world, they demonize Indigenous cultures precisely because they know nothing about them. Japan even decided to remove their manji symbol from city maps where it denoted Buddhist temples because western tourists kept thinking it was a Nazi symbol.
![White background. The top left shows a black manji symbol. Beneath reads: “Japanese”. At the top right shows an image of a three tiered pagoda in black. Beneath reads:”Foreigner”. Below in grey font reads: “The swastika is used on Japanese maps because it is an ancient Sanskrit symbol; the one on the right is a proposed new symbol to be used on maps for foreigners.” Below in black font reads: “Japan is to drop the use of the swastika and other confusing symbols on maps for foreign tourists[…]”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F97d20109-5c24-443b-9592-10a2b786f203_1274x858.png "White background. The top left shows a black manji symbol. Beneath reads: “Japanese”. At the top right shows an image of a three tiered pagoda in black. Beneath reads:”Foreigner”. Below in grey font reads: “The swastika is used on Japanese maps because it is an ancient Sanskrit symbol; the one on the right is a proposed new symbol to be used on maps for foreigners.” Below in black font reads: “Japan is to drop the use of the swastika and other confusing symbols on maps for foreign tourists[…]”")
Sadly, the people in Japan who objected to the removal of their symbol and tried to save the manji on their city maps were ignored by their own government. The white supremacy and the western hegemony was just too strong. This is yet another example of brown people eliminating their own culture to make room for white supremacy because westerners think the world revolves around them.
When brown people cater to western ignorance, they are literally handing the world over to white supremacy, known illogically as “progressive” and “social justice”.
When brown people cater to western ignorance, they are literally handing the world over to white supremacy, known illogically as “progressive” and “social justice”.
Thinking the world revolves around you, making everything about your own cultural context while ignoring everyone else’s culture, demonizing anything you don’t understand, making it all about you, perpetuating ignorance of history, retelling history to suit yourself, going out of your way to demonize another culture so you don’t have to take responsibility for your own actions, making that other culture pay through erasure and criminalization and violence and looting for your own mistakes, silencing that other culture with slander whenever they speak up about it — that’s Nazi behavior. That’s what the Nazis did to Jews and Romani people and Queer and Trans people and disabled people and on and on. It’s European racism, nationalism, imperialism, patriarchy.
That means that the progressive community, who continue to demonize the swastika and Dharmics, particularly Hindus, are engaging in Nazi behavior.
That means that the progressive community, who continue to demonize the swastika and Dharmics, particularly Hindus, are engaging in Nazi behavior.
Will these western supremacists who call themselves progressives ever change? Can they ever change?
The truth is that it doesn’t matter if someone calls themselves left, right, centrist, socialist, libertarian, progressive, conservative — white supremacy is white supremacy, western supremacy is western supremacy, and global north privilege is global north privilege. That means that my people and other Dharmics will always be the scapegoats of these monotheist supremacists and Nazis and progressives in a 1,000-year-old genocide of Hindus.
The US, a global north western superpower, is built on stolen native land on the backs of enslaved Black and brown peoples while uplifting white supremacist patriarchy. The western progressive movement has done nothing to dismantle that illegitimate country and give the land back to the Indigenous peoples. It’s the same for Canada, another white supremacist country built on stolen native land. Nor has the progressive movement succeeded in fighting for reparations for the descendants of Africans forced into slavery in the transatlantic slave trade. The Nazis took inspiration from the tactics of the US against all those Indigenous peoples to enforce their own ideology on Jews. Nazis were your biggest fans, US progressives.
So stop demonizing my people and my culture and address the genocides you have committed against Black and brown peoples, including against my own people. The swastika belongs to us Dharmics only. The hakenkreuz belongs to you white supremacists. Take responsibility for your western supremacy.
Share this article to address imperialism and white supremacy and western hegemony and to dismantle Hinduphobia.
Take responsibility for your western supremacy.
Resources
1,000 Years of Hindu Colonial Trauma
Neo-Nazi website selling hakenkreuz merch
Neo-Nazi website selling hakenkreuz flag
Swastika symbol during festival
Swastika symbol is not hakenkreuz
China’s wan symbol and Japan’s manji symbol is not a Nazi hakenkreuz
Ancient cultures all over the world utilized this symbol by their own names
Navajo symbol called whirling logs
Navajo youth wearing whirling logs symbol
Lambach Abbey Christian hakenkreuz symbol and Edward Bellamy research
Christmas is not social justice even though they pretend like it is
Christians appropriated Indigenous cultures to convert the masses
Christian destruction of tree worshipping Pagan Saxons
Internalized Christian oppression in Wales
Hooked cross symbol on Christian art in Rome 4th century
Martin Luther was anti-semitic
Christians still admire Martin Luther and ignore his anti-semitism
Christian mistranslation of hakenkreuz
Mistranslation of hakenkreuz as swastika
Neo-Nazi approved translation of Mein Kampf
British atrocities in India while Hindus are demonized
British killed 60 million Indians in famines
British sex trafficking of Indian women and children
British system of sexual slavery for Indian women and children
Anti-semitism in social justice while Hindus defended Jews
Recordings of Nixon and Kissingers bigotry towards Indians
Kissinger’s bigotry against Indians
Kissinger was a Jewish refugee from Germany
Navajo rejecting their own whirling log symbol
Hindus defending swastika symbol
More Hindus defending swastika symbol
Buddhist defending the swastika symbol
Jewish community defends Hindus community’s swastika symbol
Swastika called a hate symbol and scapegoated for white supremacy
Continued desecration of Hindu temples in Canada and everywhere
Japanese people tried to resist white ignorance
Japan removed manji symbol from city maps
Nazi genocide of Romani and Jews
1,000 Years of Hindu Colonial Trauma
Nazis took inspiration from the tactics of US against Indigenous peoples
Americans have nothing to be proud of in their history of genocide, slavery and war