Wal-Mart pulls T-shirts with Nazi skull logo

[Mark E. Smith]

Retailer apologizes, said it wasn't aware that image had SS origins

AP

Wal-Mart stores Inc. is pulling a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt from its shelves
after a Maryland blogger complained that the image was identical to a Nazi SS
emblem from World War II.

Rick Rottman, who runs an on-line journal called Bent Corner, posted a picture
of the shirt late last week next to an image of a divisional insignia he said was
used by the 3rd SS Division, a unit of Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS.

The design is a distinctive image of a squat-looking human skull slightly angled
to the side.

Wal-Mart said Monday it was not aware of the origins of the image until
Rottman's post and is working quickly to get the T-shirt out of stores,
spokesman David Tovar said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15702868/?from=ET

[Kagemusha]

1. Not every store manager's an expert on Nazi memorabilia

but I'm sure some people will assume this was totally on purpose. Not that I have absolute proof it wasn't...

[MattSh]

3. Agreed....

Not every store manager's an expert on Nazi memorabilia, however, we are talking about the USA's (world's)? biggest retailer. If they tacked a penny onto the cost of everything the sell, they'd be able to catch shit like this. But hey, why do that when bloggers can do the work for you?

But at least they protect us from "objectionable" music !!

[Kagemusha]

9. What, there's experts on offensive T-shirts waiting for a phone call?

I agree with the poster below who says the T-shirt creator absolutely must've known what it was (it's way too distinctive to be an accident) but, what, there's experts on these things? Just paying frontline workers more wouldn't have helped.

[apnu]

4. I bet the designer of the shirt copied it

And, I think its very probable that the company who printed the shirts may not have known, and I totally believe that Wal-Mart is dumb enough to just blindly put whatever up in the stores that a retailer fed them. Wal-Mart is too big for keeping track of such things.

Having said that, its pretty scary how easily this disgusting thing made it to the shelves with out anybody knowing what, exactly, it was. I wonder what else has slipped through the cracks like this...

[Katzenjammer]

28. It could well be that the shirt designer and the Totenkopf designer both took it

from the same source, a pirate flag for example. That's more common than one would think.

[Hobarticus]

29. It's actually an old Prussian cavalry badge that the SS hijacked

Pretty typical, they'd co-opt symbols from Prussian and Germanic military heraldry for their own use. Kind of created a false history by riding on the past's coattails. Thus, staining it forever.

Still goes on today, matter of fact.

[Katzenjammer]

39. That fits. I thought it looked quite old, graphically.

The Nazis really did like to pretend that they were the inheritors of a noble past. The bastards.

[Skinner]

2. Incredible. Here are the two images side by side.

Blog Posting: http://www.bentcorner.com/2006/11/09/wal-mart-is-selling-shirts-with-a-nazi-ss-skull-on-it/

Wikipedia Entry on 3rd SS Division Totenkopf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Division_Totenkopf

[Kagemusha]

8. lol, the "Since 1978" thing must've thrown the Wal-Mart people off

"But WWII was before 1978!"

[reichstag911]

17. Resemblance? What resemblance?

:eyes:

[LifeDuringWartime]

27. I've never seen that before

not that I would be caught dead in Walmart, but I wouldn't have thought anything of it.

[Hobarticus]

5. I highly doubt this was intentional...

Somewhere down the line, a graphic designer sitting in China just used a found image without knowing it's implications, and it got printed. Whoever is doing Wally World's buying from China obviously didn't catch it either.

Unfortunate that this wasn't discovered beforehand, but I doubt it was intentional.

[BluGrl]

20. I agree.

I was clueless until this thread. It actually looks a little bit like Che to me. LOL

[Hobarticus]

22. Egads, it does, at first glance!

Now, THERE's a conspiracy theory brewing in there, somewhere.

[krispos42]

41. This has happened before with stuff from Asia

Remember the big fuss when Americans found swastikas on Pokémon or Power Rangers or whatever cartoons? I think they were opposite what the Nazis used, but it was there. The Nazis used a right-bent swastika, which you can think of as a propeller spinning counterclockwise.

How about this one?

1920's highway marker:



It's an old Native American symbol. Also Asian, Greek, Roman, etc. Still used as a marker on maps for Buddist temples, along with a cross for churches.

According to Wikipedia, the US Army's 45th Infanty Division used a yellow CCW-spinning swastika on a red diamond background until the 1930's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

[Hobarticus]

46. Absolutely....

It is amazing, that the swastika has appeared in so many cultures, across so many eras, for so many peaceful reasons....and now, because of less than ten years of the Thousand-Year Reich, it's irreparably slandered.

The SS also used all sorts of archaic runes, beautiful in their simplicity, that are now immediately identified with these butchers.

[NewJeffCT]

50. We bought a kid's piano/keyboard for our daughter

Made in china, of course. We didn't get it at wal-mart.

But, it played a few pre-recorded tunes that my wife recognized as songs glorifying the Chinese Communist party & the Red Army. (my wife's from China, so she knows the songs)

[Ediacara]

47. I agree

It actually reminds me of a design from a third rate tatoo parlor, which is probably why Wally World went with it: "it's a skull, so it's kind of tough, but it's just cartoonish enough not to actually be scary."

I've never seen this image before, and I doubt many others in the US have, so I really doubt that they were out to make a Nazi shirt.

[CJCRANE]

6. Always amazes me

that the Nazis didn't realize they were the bad guys...I mean you're wearing black and there's a skull on your hat - that's got to be a clue.

[skooooo]

11. lol...no kidding

Of course they thought they were doing what was right, and everyone was going along....

[Pithlet]

14. LOL

Yeah, that's a subtle hint.

[Hobarticus]

24. But....but...their belt buckles said "God Is With Us". How could they be bad guys?

I mean, c'mon! They had God on their side!

[denverbill]

7. No doubt the creator of the t-shirt knew exactly what it was.

I hope Walmart stops buying from that vendor as well.

[chat_noir]

26. no boundaries is the manufacturer

see this post at AMERICAblog



http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/wal-mart-selling-nazi-paraphernalia.html

[hedgehog]

10. Regardless of the Nazi connection, what does it say about us that

a major retailer thought that a shirt with a skull image would be a good seller?

[skooooo]

12. Oh that's nothing new...

There have always been "death metal" tshirts, and bizarre images. Even the Greatful Dead use a skull that scared me as a kid. I don't think this incident is all that meaningful, especially since they took it off the shelves.

[Brazenly Liberal]

15. You'll be seeing more of them. They were all over the runways Fashion Week

And yes, I AM embarrassed that I know that, but who among us can control what sort of mental lint clings to our brains?

[saigon68]

13. Maybe in Certain RUSTIC parts of the country

LOL

[hedgehog]

18. I would venture to guess that more shirts with skull symbols are

worn in the suburbs than anywhere else.

[saigon68]

40. Probably-- that's where the "Trench Coat Mafia " was born

http://www.trenchcoat.org/

[BluGrl]

21. Oh, I don't know....

Maybe the box office hit Pirates of the Caribbean??? Skulls and pirate stuff is hot stuff right now.

[hedgehog]

25. But the pirates have friendly skulls!

[LizW]

42. My son's high school's mascot is

the Buccaneers! The kids are always wearing stuff with skull and crossbones.

I don't shop WalMart, but I would have been mortified if I'd bought my son this shirt!

[krispos42]

43. Hey, it's pretty common

How many people out there are running around with cool-looking Asian pictograms tattooed on their bodies without realizing it means "unwashed anus" or something similar.

Hell, I have a "G-Unit Raiders" tee-shirt with a skull on it. I wear it all the time. I have no clue what a "G-Unit Raider" is. A guy at work also has one, but I don't think he knows what one is either.

Hmmm... I wonder if it's some sort of sexual innuendo, now that I think about it.

[onehandle]

16. What a bad business decision.

They are missing a prime segment of their customers.

Hillbilly Skinheads.

Stockholders should sue.

[TlalocW]

19. Man, I'm glad I was able to pick up my new hat at Walmart

Before there was a big hubbub.



TlalocW

[Hardrada]

37. I guess you can pick up stuff at Walmart you can't buy on eBay!

Interestin' world.

[CJCRANE]

49. Very dapper.

Sure to be a big hit on the dinner party circuit.

;)

[Virginia Dare]

23. Merry Christmas and Heil Hitler....

incredible....:eyes:

[frankieT]

30. it's the famous TOTENKOPF SS design

No mistake here, It's the second or third most known visual signature of the nazis after the swastika and the SIEG runes of the SS, call me paranoid but i think it was intentional. Wearing this kind of stuff in Europe, especially in Germany means that you're a nazi sympathizer.

[hedgehog]

32. You're forgetting that most people are very ignorant.

Kids fifteen years old in my daughter's ADVANCED PLACEMENT Global history class did not know the difference between the Democratic and the Republican parties when last week's elections were being discussed!

[MrPrax]

38. Add me to the Ignoranti!!!...

While I know the differences between the Democratic and Puke party, I don't think that if I saw this image on a T-shirt anywhere that I WOULD have immediately thought 'oh that's a Nazi insignia!!'.

In fact, I think virtually everyone HERE, commenting in this thread wouldn't have even known, if it wasn't pointed out to them first.

I guess the 'nazi skinhead metal freaks' will have to console themselves with the usual camouflaged military-looking festooned with public domain images that they sell at Wal-Mart.

[krispos42]

44. 100% agree. The "Since 1978" tagline helps the confusion

But the human skull has been portayed in dozens of fashions, so a particular one to a particular Nazi division is a bit of a stretch. Everybody knows the swastika and the eagle symbol they used. The skull on the hat is IMHO a little too small to make out on a TV or movie screen.

About ten years ago the University of Connecticut held a contest to change their logo. The old was simply the state seal (from the state flag) with "University of Cennecticut" in a circle around it. The design picked, a maple leaf, turns out to have a passing resemblence to a Nazi army division.



I don't remember the exact German division, but they were similar but distinctly different. The Daily Campus ran both images on the front page.

[dipsydoodle]

34. or even a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean

I suppose what you said could possibly apply in Germany but I doubt very much that any importance to it would be attached elsewhere in Europe. We get some pretty gross stuff on t's here in the UK and nobody even flinches.

[uppityperson]

31. Good for them to pull it.

Thanks WalMart.

[hedgehog]

33. Did they really have any choice?

[Mrspeeker]

35. Its a free country

Who cares about a stupid shirt with a logo ideal that died 50 years ago, its only a Nazi skull if we call it that otherwise its just another drawing. Limitations of this kind based on twisted meanings, that only became twisted because we made it that way, are the breaking points of our own freedom and democracy. When Rock and Roll came to Germany it was forbiddin, is this the next step?

[jonnyblitz]

36. i believe a walmart was selling "the protocols of the learned

elders of Zion" at one point , too. Unbelievable. :crazy:

[hippiechick]

45. Nazi Skull n bones = Bad. BFEE Skull n Bones = ok to sell ?

Just pondering the possibilities for GHW and crew ...

[darkism]

48. And yet crap with the Iron Cross on it is popular as ever.

Sure, the Knights Templar used a variation of it ...but it was still a symbol of the Reich and I can't understand why people want to plaster themselves with it, unless they're German nationalists.

[BreweryYardRat]

51. Teutonic Knights used the Iron Cross.

And yeah, it's tacky. You see it a lot in goth/punk/industrial clubs. Not cool.