New far-right German party adopts former secret Nazi symbol

[steve2470]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/11/new-far-right-german-party-adopts-former-secret-nazi-symbol



A German politician has left the far-right Alternative for Germany to set up a new party with a logo that uses a symbol adopted as a secret sign by Austrian Nazis in the 1930s.

André Poggenburg resigned from his post as the AfD’s regional leader in eastern Saxony-Anhalt state last year after labelling Turks as “camel drivers” and immigrants with dual nationality a “homeless mob we no longer want”. He announced his resignation from the party in an email sent to the leadership earlier this week.

In the email he criticised the AfD for worrying too much about the possibility of being put under surveillance by German intelligence. Separately he told Welt newspaper that he was opposed to a “shift to the left” in the AfD, which has spent the last months ridding itself of extreme elements in an attempt to appear more moderate.

<snip>

His new party Aufbruch der deutschen Patrioten (Awakening of German Patriots) will use a cornflower against the background of a German flag. The small blue flower was used as a secret symbol by the then-banned National Socialists in 1930s Austria before the Anschluss of 1938 brought the Nazis to power in the country.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Well, it's not a secret any more!

I'm sure the German government takes a dim view of these goings-on.

[steve2470]

2. I am sure you are correct, Peggy

This new "party" is probably already under government surveillance.

[Fuzzpope]

3. I wonder if..

This is the same flower that features in Private Blithe's story arc in Band of Brothers.

[Aristus]

4. No. That's the edelweiss, which is white.

'weiss' = white.

[Fuzzpope]

5. .

Gotcha, thanks.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Is that something based on the song from the "The Sound of Music," which

was invented for the musical and the movie?

[Aristus]

9. Well, the song was inspired by the flower, not the other way around.

But yeah...

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. I watch TV over the air, so I don't get "Band of Brothers."

I am not familiar with the story arc in the series.

The song in "TSOM" was ginned up by Rodgers and Hammerstein. AFAIK, there were no song that went back years and years as an old Austrian folk tune.

[Aristus]

11. In 'BoB', an American soldier fighting in France early in the invasion encounters a dead German

soldier wearing the Edelweiss on his uniform, and another soldier tells him that it's a symbol of the German mountain-warfare units in which each individual soldier is required to collect his own Edelweiss by climbing above the treeline in the mountains to get it.

Some doubt has been cast upon the accuracy of this assertion, but it made for an interesting scene.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. Unusual. A different meme than that of its use in "TSOM." Thanks. NT

[Midnight Writer]

6. Steve King (R-Iowa) is advising them.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. They can have my cornflower Corningware when they pry it from

my cold, dead hands.

I love that stuff. Incredibly, people get rid of it at yard sales. I saw a guy with a shopping cart full of it at a thrift store.

[spike jones]

13. To the new Nazi in Germany I say..