Sigmund Freud once famously said — despite his tremendous talent for intuiting the most complicated explanations for things – that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.
I was curious to understand the origins of the swastika and it’s meaning in Nazi Germany. I read many long diatribes of the occult links and/or how it’s cooption of an ancient Hindu symbol.
The swastika comes in two forms representing the involution (left facing) or evolution (right facing) of the universe.
(The right and left facing swastika respectively)
There are many fascinating theories, but let’s examine a simpler one. Let’s look at the church where Adolf Hitler sang as a chorister:
skip ahead to time index 2:50.
(Swastika or Hakenzreuz in honour of Theodore Hagen (TH) at Abbey Lambach (AL), Austria, dedicated in the year 1869)
The German word for swastika is NOT ‘swastika’ it’s ‘hakenkreuz’ (hooked cross). The ‘swastika’ that bedecks the Abbey Lambach where Hitler sang as a boy is a play on words in honour of a former Abbott: Theodore Hagen. Thus it’s a ‘hagenkreuz’ ‘hakenkreuz’ which honors Theodore Hagen.
You might be surprised to see the papal salute at Abbey Lambach:
(There’s no sarcasm here, seriously)
I’ve long thought that attempts to complicate or concoct a more mysterious or supernatural origin for Hitler and his ideologies is a human failing trying to theologically distance ourselves from evil. In other words: hatred of that magnitude can only happen “over there” where over there is some supernatural space or some otherwise distant and evil theology.
The truth is far scarier. Hitler was a choir boy who corrupted the symbols presented him to seduce a people in distress. Hitler wasn’t an occult warlock, nor were his origins mysterious enough for us to deny his proximity to us. He was a forlorn and rejected artist who needed a scapegoat and subscribed to megalomania to compensate for a feeling of nothingness.
Hitler’s Paintings:
Follow Up:
Scientists Discover Iron Man Found by Nazis Is of Extraterrestrial Origin
Interesting article. One thing though, Hitler was not a rejected or failed artist. In Vienna he made more money with selling his own artwork than most people in factories did. He enjoyed the life he lived although he was ambitious and very angry. If there would not have been a World War 1 he would probably have stayed a second class painter or illustrator.