Zodiac sign for German soldiers. Coat of arms of Germany. Flipping through the pages of history

Sign "For the fight against partisans" (Bandenkampfabzeichen) Established on January 30, 1944.

Awarded:
The personnel of the field units of the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarines, SS, police and SD, who took part in anti-partisan operations.

Conditions for the award:
The main criteria for the award were developed personally by the chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.
For ground troops:
- for 20 days of participation in hostilities against partisans, a bronze badge was awarded;
— in 50 days - a silver badge;
- 100 days - gold sign.
For the Luftwaffe, respectively - 30, 75 and 150 sorties, directly related to anti-partisan actions. If the plane was shot down, three sorties were counted.

The highest degree of the award was designed - a gold badge with diamonds, but only one person - Himmler - received it.

Sign description:
The central place in the composition was occupied by a skull with crossbones and a sword with a swastika on the blade that pierced it. The blade of the sword is wrapped around the Hydra - a mythological five-headed snake, symbolizing the "countless" partisan "gangs" (in ancient Greek myths, the Hydra had a new one instead of a severed head). The whole composition was framed by a wreath of their oak leaves.
The sign was made of zinc, and in two versions - all-metal and hollow. There were variants of hollow samples with large and small pins, with various variations of clasp systems. On some signs, snake heads were poorly drawn.
The size of the sign is on average 57 by 49 mm.
The award was presented in a box covered in dark green velvet with a white satin lid.
The badge was worn on the left breast pocket. The golden badge was handed over personally by Himmler. The first award took place on February 21, 1945, immediately to the fourth employee of the Waffen-SS for battles on the Adriatic coast.

Award history:
At the beginning of 1941, in some European countries (Yugoslavia, Poland), occupied by Nazi Germany, began to unfold guerrilla war against the invaders. Trying to suppress the resistance of these rebel groups, the German troops faced a rather serious problem - they were not ready for this form of warfare.
Initially, the field units of the Wehrmacht acted against irregular partisan formations, observing army regulations, but it soon became clear that it was necessary to develop new tactics. The guerrillas operated in small groups, hiding in hard-to-reach forests and mountainous terrain, and sometimes simply dissolved among the civilian population.
In October 1942, the overall leadership of the anti-partisan struggle passed to the Waffen SS (Waffen SS). By February 1944, a representative of Heinrich Himmler's department was appointed in each military administrative zone.
In 1944, the resistance movement swept almost all of Europe - from the western territories of the USSR to the Mediterranean coast of Italy and France. Partisans sometimes created really serious problems for the normal operation of the rear services of the Axis troops, destroying the lines of communication ( railways, bridges, communication nodes, etc.). Large and well-armed detachments attacked garrisons and even military units.
All kinds of people began to be involved in anti-partisan actions. German troops, including the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine (coastal defense units), although the main role was still assigned to the field gendarmerie and police units, the SS troops, and the state security service (SD).
The punitive operations carried out against the partisans were particularly cruel. The Germans treated the members of the Resistance movement as ordinary bandits, so only death awaited the captured partisans - execution or the gallows. In turn, this caused a backlash from the partisans, who had nothing to lose. To a German soldier or officer who was captured by partisans, anti-partisan Chest sign could cost lives, so the Germans in the field (especially at the end of the war) were not eager to attach it to their uniform.

Half a century has passed since the end of the Second World War, but until now, the two letters SS (more precisely, of course, SS), for the majority, are synonymous with horror and terror. Thanks to the mass production of Hollywood and the Soviet film factories trying to keep up with it, almost all of us are familiar with the uniforms of the SS men and their death-head emblem. But the actual history of the SS is much more complex and multifaceted. In it one can find heroism and cruelty, nobility and meanness, selflessness and intrigue, deep scientific interests and a passionate craving for the ancient knowledge of distant ancestors.

The head of the SS Himmler, who sincerely believed that the Saxon king Henry I "Birdcatcher" was spiritually reincarnated in him - the founder of the First Reich, elected in 919 the king of all Germans. In one of his speeches in 1943 he said:

"Our order will enter the future as a union of an elite that has united the German people and all of Europe around itself. It will give the world leaders of industry, Agriculture as well as political and spiritual leaders. We will always obey the law of elitism, choosing the superior and discarding the inferior. If we stop following this fundamental rule, then we will condemn ourselves to and disappear from the face of the earth like any other human organization.

His dreams, as you know, were not destined to come true for completely different reasons. WITH young years Himmler showed an increased interest in the "ancient heritage of our ancestors." Associated with the Thule Society, he was fascinated by the pagan culture of the Germans and dreamed of its revival - of the time when it would replace the "stinking Christianity." In the intellectual depths of the SS there was a development of a new "moral" based on pagan ideas.

Himmler considered himself the founder of a new pagan order, which was "destined to change the course of history", carry out "purification of the rubbish accumulated over the millennia" and return humanity to "the path prepared by Providence." In connection with such grandiose plans for a "return", it is not surprising that the ancient one was widely used on the SS order. On the uniforms of the SS men, they stood out, testifying to the elitism and camaraderie that prevails in the organization. From 1939 they went to war singing a hymn that included the following line: "We are all ready for battle, we are inspired by runes and a dead head."

As conceived by the Reichsführer SS, the runes were to play a special role in the symbols of the SS: on his personal initiative, within the framework of the Ahnenerbe program - the "Society for the Study and Dissemination cultural heritage ancestors" - the Institute of Runic Writing was established. Until 1940, all recruits of the SS order underwent mandatory instruction regarding runic symbolism. By 1945, 14 basic runic symbols were used in the SS. The word "rune" means "secret script." Runes are the basis alphabets carved on stone, metal and bone, and which became widespread mainly in the pre-Christian Northern Europe among the ancient Germanic tribes.

"... The great gods - Odin, Ve and Willy carved a man from ash, and a woman from willow. The eldest of the children of Bor, Odin, breathed soul into people and gave life. To bestow them with new knowledge, Odin went to Utgard, the Land of Evil ", to the World Tree. There he pulled out an eye and brought it to, but this seemed not enough to the Guardians of the Tree. Then he gave his life - he decided to die in order to resurrect. For nine days he hung on a branch pierced by a spear. Each of the eight nights of Initiation opened him new secrets of being. On the ninth morning, Odin saw runes-letters inscribed on a stone. His mother's father, the giant Belthorn, taught him to carve and color runes, and the World Tree became known from then on - Yggdrasil ... "

So tells about the acquisition of runes by the ancient Germans "Snorrieva Edda" (1222-1225), perhaps the only complete review of the heroic epic of the ancient Germans, based on legends, divination, spells, sayings, cult and rituals of the Germanic tribes. In the Edda, Odin was revered as the god of war and the patron of the dead heroes of Valhalla. He was also considered a necromancer.

The famous Roman historian Tacitus in his book "Germany" (98 BC) described in detail how the Germans were engaged in predicting the future with the help of runes.

Each rune had a name and a magical meaning that went beyond purely linguistic boundaries. The inscription and composition changed over time and acquired magical significance in Teutonic astrology. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the runes were remembered by various "folkische" (folk) groups spread in Northern Europe. Among them was the Thule Society, which played a significant role in the early days of the Nazi movement.

Hakenkreutz

SWASTIKA - the Sanskrit name of the sign depicting a hook cross (among the ancient Greeks, this sign, which became known to them from the peoples of Asia Minor, was called "tetraskele" - "four-legged", "spider"). This sign was associated with the cult of the Sun among many peoples and is found already in the Upper Paleolithic era and even more often in the Neolithic era, primarily in Asia (according to other sources, the oldest image of the swastika was found in Transylvania, it dates back to the late stone age; the swastika was also found in the ruins of the legendary Troy, this is the Bronze Age). Already from the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. it enters into symbolism, where it means the secret doctrine of the Buddha. The swastika is reproduced on the oldest coins of India and Iran (before our era it penetrates from there to); V Central America also known among the peoples as a sign indicating the cycle of the Sun. In Europe, the distribution of this sign dates back to a relatively late time - to the Bronze and Iron Ages. In the era of the migration of peoples, he penetrates through the Finno-Ugric tribes to the north of Europe, to Scandinavia and the Baltic, and becomes one of the supreme norse god Odin (Wotan in German mythology), who suppressed and absorbed the previous solar (solar) cults. Thus, the swastika, as one of the varieties of the image of the solar circle, was practically found in all parts of the world, as the solar sign served as an indication of the direction of rotation of the Sun (from left to right) and was also used as a sign of well-being, “turning away from the left side”.

It is precisely because of this that the ancient Greeks, who learned about this sign from the peoples of Asia Minor, changed the turn of their “spider” to the left and at the same time changed its meaning, turning it into a sign of evil, sunset, death, since for them it was “alien” . Since the Middle Ages, the swastika has been completely forgotten and only occasionally met as a purely ornamental motif without any meaning and significance.

Only in the late XIX century, probably based on the erroneous and hasty conclusion of some German archaeologists and ethnographers that the swastika sign can be an indicator for identifying the Aryan peoples, since it is allegedly found only among them, in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century they began to use the swastika as an anti-Semitic sign (for the first time in 1910), although later, at the end of the 20s, the works of English and Danish archaeologists were published, who discovered the swastika not only in the territories inhabited by Semitic peoples (in Mesopotamia and Palestine), but also directly on the Hebrew sarcophagi.

For the first time as a political sign-symbol, the swastika was used on March 10-13, 1920 on the helmets of the militants of the so-called “Erhard Brigade”, which formed the core of the “Volunteer Corps” - a monarchist paramilitary organization led by Generals Ludendorff, Seeckt and Lutzow, who carried out the Kapp putsch - counter-revolutionary the coup that planted the landowner V. Kapp as “premier” in Berlin. Although Bauer's Social Democratic government fled ignominiously, the Kapp Putsch was liquidated in five days by the 100,000-strong German Army created under the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany. The authority of the militaristic circles was then severely undermined, and the sign of the swastika from that time began to mean a sign of right-wing extremism. Since 1923, on the eve of Hitler's "beer putsch" in Munich, the swastika has become the official emblem of the Nazi Party, and since September 1935 - the main state emblem Nazi Germany, included in its coat of arms and flag, as well as in the emblem of the Wehrmacht - an eagle holding a wreath with a swastika in its claws.

Under the definition of "Nazi" symbols, only a swastika standing on an edge at 45 °, with the ends directed to the right, can fit. It was this sign that was on the state banner of National Socialist Germany from 1933 to 1945, as well as on the emblems of the civil and military services of this country. It is also desirable to call it not "swastika", but Hakenkreuz, as the Nazis themselves did. The most accurate reference books consistently distinguish between the Hakenkreuz ("Nazi swastika") and the traditional swastikas in Asia and America, which stand on the surface at an angle of 90°.

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Symbols of the Third Reich

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Perhaps for many Russians, the coat of arms of Germany is associated with not too pleasant, if not tragic, memories of the Second World War, since its main image is an eagle, one of the most formidable raptors on the planet. Fortunately, the bird depicted on the state symbol of Germany has significantly changed outwardly. And now it does not look menacing, but solemnly and powerfully.

The main details of the coat of arms

On the main official symbol of Germany there is only an eagle, its image is placed on a golden shield. The bird itself with outstretched wings is painted black, and its beak, tongue, paws and claws are scarlet. According to heraldic principles, the eagle's head is turned to the right.

Sometimes you can find just an image of a black eagle with scarlet details. In the absence of a shield, the bird can no longer be called the coat of arms of Germany, the name "federal eagle" is allowed. The regulation, approved in January 1950, contained a description of the federal coat of arms and the federal eagle. And the drawing was approved only two years later (by the way, it is a copy of the coat of arms of Germany, approved in 1928).

Flipping through the pages of history

The eagle is a symbol of the sun, courage and vitality. This is the meaning given to this bird in mythology. different peoples and countries. Even during the reign of Charlemagne, the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire appears, on which there is a well-known combination of colors and symbols: a golden background; black Eagle.

True, in the 15th century, the symbol of the emperor, the eagle, had a second head and a single crown placed on top. It is this image of a bird that was preserved on the coat of arms Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1848 it appeared on the state symbol of the German Reich, in contrast to various kingdoms and duchies, where there could be lions, bears, crowns, fortresses and keys.

The eagle took its permanent place on the symbols of Germany both during the unified German Reich (until 1918) and the Weimar Republic, which replaced the Reich and existed until 1933. For the purpose of intimidation, the Nazis added a swastika and an oak crown, this symbol looked too gloomy.

The modern coat of arms of Germany - an exact copy german character introduced in 1928. And the drawing was invented even earlier, in 1926, by Tobias Schwab. True, experts say that the tail of the modern German eagle is shorter. The proud and formidable bird settled for a long time on the main state symbol of Germany and is not going to share such an honorable place with anyone.

The flag of Germany is a tricolor with black, red and gold horizontal stripes. For the first time, these three colors became a symbol of the national liberation struggle of the German people in 1813. This is how the uniform of the student freedom corps, which opposed Napoleon's army, was painted. Later, these colors were transferred to the banners of student and democratic organizations and became a symbol of the 1848 revolution. However, the German Empire, created in 1871, like its predecessor, the North German Confederation, had a black-white-red flag. The 1918 revolution chose the black-red-gold flag as its symbol. In 1949, the black-red-gold flag of the 1919 model was chosen as the state and national flag of the Federal Republic of Germany. Black symbolizes the dark years of reaction, red - the blood of patriots shed in the struggle for freedom, gold - the sun of freedom.

The modern state emblem of Germany depicts a black single-headed eagle with red paws, tongue and beak on a golden shield. This coat of arms is very ancient, serving as an emblem of the power of the German kings. The first image of an eagle on a shield can be seen on the silver coins of King Frederick Barbarossa (late 12th century). From the 14th century, first the paws, and then the beak and tongue of the eagle became red.

But from the beginning of the 15th century, the single-headed eagle was replaced by a double-headed one - a symbol of the Habsburg dynasty ruling until 1871 (although the monarchy was elective, during the election of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire there was a "family law" when the next chosen one had to be related to the previous ones).

The single-headed eagle was revived as the coat of arms of Germany in 1871, but the Prussian small coat of arms was depicted on its chest. The coat of arms was crowned with the imperial crown, and next to it were two mythological forest giants with the coat of arms of Prussia and Brandenburg. The Weimar Republic in 1919 freed the German eagle from the monarchist and Prussian emblems. In 1927, the image of the eagle was even more stylized, he took on a fairly peaceful appearance. It was in this form that the eagle was adopted as the coat of arms of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950, which became a symbol of the continuity of the democratic order of the Weimar Republic.

The hymn's melody was written by Franz Joseph Haydn. The basis for it was the old Austrian royal anthem, which was first performed on February 12, 1797. Words by August Heinrich Hoffmann van Falersleben (1841). The anthem was adopted in 1922 by the first president of the German Republic, Friedrich Ebert.

(English)
Unity and right and freedom for the German fatherland;
Let us all pursue this purpose brotherly, with heart and hand.
Unity and right and freedom are the pledge of happiness.
Flourish in this blessing's glory, flourish, German fatherland.

The coat of arms of Germany is a yellow shield of the Varangian heraldic form, which depicts a black eagle with its head turned in left side(from looking at the shield). The current coat of arms was sketched by artist Tobias Schwab in 1926.

Eagle like state symbol continues its history during the times of the united German Reich (1871-1918) and during the Weimar Republic (1918-1933). The Nazis also used the image of an eagle with a swastika in an oak crown in its claws as a state symbol of their power. The prototype of the eagle was, most likely, the Coat of Arms of Prussia.

Symbolism

The eagle is a traditional symbol for German heraldry, which symbolizes strength and power. A similar coat of arms existed on the coats of arms of the first German rulers. The eagle symbolizes royalty, courage, continuity. A similar image of an eagle can be seen on coins from the 12th century, belonging to the court of King Frederick Barbarossa. Initially, the beak, tongue and paws of the eagle were red.

The use of a black and white version of the emblem is also fixed.

The image of the eagle is limited by an invisible hexagonal grid.

Historical emblems of Germany

Coats of arms of the German Confederation from 1848 to 1871

Coats of arms of Germany in the period from 1871 to 1888

Actually, state emblem during this period there was an image of an eagle depicted on a shield with two shield holders. The eagle did not act as a coat of arms, although it was used in some cases.