The Nazi Sig Rune and The Swastika

We move now into the second of the rune symbols used by the Nazis. Again I'm relying upon the help of Viking Rune to guide us into this study.

The Sig-Rune looks like a lightning bolt. It also is very ancient and did not mean what it came to mean among the Nazis. Among the ancient Norse and Germanic peoples it always designated the sun. In their language it was sowilo or sol, meaning sun. The Anglo-Saxon Futhorc name was sigel, which also meant 'sun'.

All this was changed by the very influential Guido von List. You will find much helpful information about this in Guido von List Runes and the Swastika symbol. Von List changed the name to Sieg, meaning victory in German. From this we are all familiar with the infamous Nazi salute, Sieg Heil, "Hale to Victory". Heil is, of course, a word for health and Heiland means Savior. Anyway, the Sig-Rune became an S and two together became the swastika and represented socialists joining together to form the National Socialist German Workers' party. In 1935 the swastika flag became official for Germany. The swastika symbol was not called that, but rather a HakenKreuz or hooked cross. This was Hitler's attempt to unite the church with the state, especially since German culture was strongly influenced by Christianity.

You can find more on these topics on Rex Curry's website and its various pages. He has some interesting things to say about the use of the swastika also in America up to the start of WW II, as well as the open hand salute. The symbol was used by various socialist groups, not only in the USA, but also in the USSR.

To say the least, Curry does not write objectively about these various matters.

Nazis and Runic Symbols - Part One

At the heart of National Socialism (Nazi) Germany was a love of country and a heart-felt desire to restore and promote all things German. The renewed religion of the north countries, the Nordic (the word is derived from Nord, German and Scandinavian for north), must be put back in its correct place. As a result, the runes and rune symbols became very important in the life and events of Nazi Germany. See Norse Rune Symbols and the Third Reich.

The Holy Nation of Odin traces the history of Tiu, the son of Odin and Frigga or Freya. He is the god of martial honor, courage, defense and victory, bravest of the gods and one of the twelve principal deities of Asgard. He is portrayed as the one-handed warrior. 

By the way, the practice of Odinism or the Nordic faith continues to the present day. As the home page of the Holy Nation of Odin says, we all should be familiar with it because of the very names of our week: Sunna (Sunday), Manni (Monday), Tiu/Tyr (Tuesday), Wodan/Odin (Wednesday), Thor (Thursday) and Frigga/Freya (Friday). Note also that the practice of putting up a Christmas tree can be traced to this those who followed the Nordic faith and decorated trees to attract ancestral spirits to accept their gifts. 

But back to Tiu and his runic symbol. Runes were always considered symbols of great power. The word rune itself means 'mystery'. This was especially true when reading and writing were not common, so the ability to represent ideas in symbolic form was a mystery to most. Thus these symbols became a means of communication between the seen and the unseen, between the visible world of men and the invisible spirit realm, the realm of the gods, the mighty ones. 

In the view of this and other nature religion, everything is divine and alive. The Spirit and the spirits are everywhere. So the Nordic or Germanic priests and priestesses used the runes to divine or read the messages of the spirits. More on this another time. 

In Nazi Germany the Tyr or Tiu rune was also known as the Kampf-Rune (Battle rune) or the Pfeil-Rune (Arrow rune). It symbolized leadership in battle and was widely used by various young people organizations. It was used as a symbol for leadership schools (Reichsführerschulen) of Hitler's brownshirts, the SA (Sturmabteilung), the Nazi party's paramilitary wing. Upon graduation from leadership school, brownshirts were permitted to wear the Tyr symbol on the upper left arm. It was also the badge of the SS (Schutzstaffel or 'protective squadron'). The SS broke off from the SA in 1934. The graves of the SS were marked with the Tyr symbol rather than the Christian cross. 

To the present the Tyr rune is common among white supremacists and Neo-Nazi hate groups. 

Freya, Goddess of Many Names

One of the stated aims of the Nazi regime was to restore the true religion of the north. As noted in earlier blogs, this meant restoring the worship of the gods and goddesses of the north. Tie this into the belief that the Germans were the true twentieth century representatives of the Aryan race and you begin to see the links with the various other historical manifestations of the gods and goddesses around the world. The Nazis were but returning to the worship of the same gods and goddesses the Aryans, the noble white race, had been worshipping for thousands of years. The Aryans would include the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, later the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians and in the Americas the Incas and Aztecs. They all had similar gods, many parallel mythical stories, but with different names. They all worshipped Freya, goddess of many names.

In Aphrodite from The Many Faces of Venus Ev Chochrane links the development of various mythological tales about ancient goddesses with catastrophic events in out solar system. Why does the Aphrodite, the mother goddess, the goddess of love, sex and fertility have such power? Why is she worshipped so widely under many names? You can read the article to see how he attempts to tie this to the planet Venus in its various phases.

Ishtar (Louvre Museum)

For the purposes of this Blog it is enough to note that this Queen of Heaven, the goddess Astarte or Ishtar or Inanna (Great Lady) was the goddess of life and love, fertility and sexuality, also the goddess of war, battles and the chase among the Phoenicians and Assyrians (see also in the Bible Jeremiah 7:18 and Jeremiah 44:17-25).

She appears as two Greek goddesses among the Greeks. Many suggest that Ishtar was the precursor to the Greek Athena, the goddess of culture and heroes. She was also the precursor to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, fertility and sex, that frivolous and promiscuous goddess, beloved by men and gods. Ishtar or Astarte are but equivalents of the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus. In Egypt she was Hathor, Great One of many names, Mistress of heaven. She also became Isis, ideal mother, goddess of children. In the north she was worshipped as Freya, wife of Odin, the All Father.

In my novel, Freya's Child, Hulda Schwarz, despairs of teaching all this and so much more to Albert Freitag. To her and to many Nazis, particularly the members of the SS under Heinrich Himmler, this was the only way to go. The true religion, with all its ancient history and meaning must be restored. The destiny of the Aryan race was to rule the world. The thousand year reign of the Third Reich had begun.

Culture in the Third Reich: Reflections on History

Culture in the Third Reich: Disseminating the Nazi Worldview — A brief historical review of the major events controlled by the Nazis as they ascended to power in the first part of the 1930s. Reminds me that I'll have to explore each of these areas in more depth if I'm to understand how this happened.

Big question: Can it happen in the U.S.? How vital is worldview?
Brief answer: Worldview is everything. Right now it seems that in the U.S. we have a clash between several worldviews. This is reflected in our politics.

Concern: the quoted article above does not discuss the Nazi program to replace Christian and Jewish religious views. The major festivals, i.e. Christmas and Easter, etc. were replaced with celebrations of the winter solstice and the spring or vernal equinox. Dragging back the worship of the old gods of the north brought also the worldview of those old gods, their values and culture.

More on this in later posts. Caution: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” 
— Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, p. 284
So the oft repeated quote of George Santayana. Some truth therein.

Freya's Child—Not Fantasy, but Historical Fiction

I keep reading that it's very important to find the people who are interested in what your novel is all about. The good folks at Wheatmark, my publisher, suggested that we place it both as fantasy and as mystery. I go back and forth about that question. 

When I look for a fantasy novel I think of something like JRR Tolkien's work. Middle Earth, Hobbits, Ents, Elves and Wizards are all characters from fantasy novels. What frightens me a little is that people will begin to think that Freya's Child is a novel about some fantastic world that existed only in the author's mind. 

That's not true. This novel is based upon real history. It is in many ways historical fiction. That's not to say that my characters actually existed. With the exception of Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi SS, all the others are fictional and any resemblance to real people is, as they say, coincidental. The history part has to do with the Nazis—they were certainly real—and with World War II. 

But here's the part I want to emphasize. Thousands upon thousands of Nazis were committed to replacing Christianity with the Nordic religion, with the worship of the old gods they believed had been repressed. The true religion of the rising Aryan race was the Nordic and the worship of the gods of the north. 

This may sound like fantasy, but that part is solid fact or history. They did worship the old gods and they did believe in their power.