color that carries people away. It is suitable for associations of chaste
virgins, but not for the overpowering movement of a revolutionary time....
[Black] is also not thrilling enough.... White and blue was out of the
question, despite the wonderful effect from the aesthetic point of view, as
the color of a German individual state and of a political orientation
directed at particularistic narrow-mindedness that did not enjoy the best of
reputations.... [Black, white, and red] this color composition... is the
most resplendent harmony that exists.”
Hitler was never satisfied with the results of his open competition
to design the flag, in which all party members were invited to take part: “I
had to reject, without exception, the numerous designs that in those days
were handed in by circles of the young movement and that mostly had
placed the swastika on the old flag. I myself—as leader—did not want to
come forth immediately with my own sketch, as it was quite possible that
someone else would produce one that was just as good or even better.” In
fact, according to Nazi lore the form that the party adopted was ostensibly
designed by Dr. Friedrich Krohn, a dentist from Starnberg whom Hitler
never acknowledged by name in Mein Kampf, but about whose design he
wrote, “[it] was not bad at all, and besides that approached my own design
very closely, except that it had the mistake that the swastika was composed
in a white circle with curved hooks. Meanwhile, I myself, after innumerable
attempts, had put down a final form: a flag with a background of red, with
a white circle, and in its center, a black swastika. And this then was kept.”
Although Hitler gave credit to a Munich goldsmith, Herr Füss,
for designing the party’s badge (similar in design to the flag) he neglected
to credit Wilhelm Deffke, a leading German logo and trademark designer
for having refined and stylized a version of the swastika before 1920.
According to a former assistant, Deffke was branded a “cultural bolshevist”
by the Nazis, but in a recent biographical note on her employer she wrote:
“Deffke came across a representation of the ancient Germanic sun-wheel
on which he worked to redefine and stylize its shape. Later this symbol
appeared in a brochure which he had published, [the Nazis] chose it as
their symbol but reversed it....Needless to say, this was done without
any thought of copyright or compensation to the ‘cultural Bolshevist.’ In
September 1935 , this symbol was incorporated into the Third Reich’s flag.
It is ironic that the design chosen for the national emblem and the ruling
party was rediscovered and refined by a man whom the regime later
persecuted... .”
The swastika would not have been adopted if Hitler did not want
it, nor would it have been applied so effectively. Even the most vociferous
opponents of Nazism agree that Hitler’s identity system is the most
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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