The hooked cross (swastika) placed in the center of the traditional symbol of Christianity, was adapted by the protestant "German Christian Movement" (Deutsche Christen or short D.C.) as their symbol. As a group within the German Protestant Church it was openly endorsed by the Nazi party. Dominating in 1933 the unifying process of the 29 regional churches into the Protestant Reich Church. The Deutsche Christen managed to get Ludwig Muller, one of their own ,elected "Reich Bishop". One of their credos:

Because in the course of historical development,
corrupting Jewish influence
has also been active in Christianity,
the dejudaization of Church and Christianity has become
the inescapable and decisive duty of the Church today;
it is the requirement for the future of Christianity.

Institute for Research into and elimination of Jewish influence in the German Church Life. 1941

Docent Guide, by chgs.umn.edu

The Swastika is originally a symbol that came from India and is still found in abundance as a symbol in Hindu culture. It is a symbol of "good luck." Hitler took the symbol, which is believed to have been part of the carvings in the Catholic Church he attended in Linz, Austria, reversed the field so the symbol became more dynamic moving from left to right, and made it the symbol of his political party-NSDAP-The Nazi Party. Other scholars have recalled it is a variant of a Greek cross, found in many decorative elements before the twentieth century.

In this painting, however, Hirschberger is reflecting on more than the Swastika symbol itself, but how it was merged with the essential Christian symbol. After 1933, the German Christian Movement (Deutsche Christen or "DC") displayed the traditional cross with a Swastika at the point of crossing, with an "D" and "C," symbolizing the name of the Church. In English, the D and C stand for "doublecross," the sign of the Swastika and also possibly an allusion to the image of the "Doublecross" in Charlie Chaplain's famous 1940 film, "The Great Dictator."

The German Christian Movement (DC), a Protestant group, endorsed the Nazi Party and unified 29 regional churches  into the Protestant Reich Church. Ludwig Muller was elected "Reich Bishop." In 1938, NSDAP came out with new versions of the Bible and  biographies of "Christ the Aryan," which attempted to eradicate the Judaic  roots of Christianity. Dejudification of the Christian church was  considered a goal of all Party members and the Churches.

In this painting, the image of Party Member and Church official are blended, as indicated by the cross on the hat. "D" and "C" appear as a visual text. The image of the official holds two photos showing activities by the Church in service to the Nazis. Hirschberger this has blended his own interpretation with the reality of the documentary photograph.

Charlie Chaplain's 1940 American film, "The Great Dictator," used the symbol of "the double cross" for the flag of the Hitler look-alike. In English, the word "doublecross" has meaning, which relates to the treachery of the Nazis and the false promises that ultimately led to the destruction of Germany as well as its victims.

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American-Buddha Librarian's Comments:

[AB-1] See  "Beyers Naude, Who Fought Apartheid, Dies at 89"; see also "The Rise of the South African Reich"

Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terrorism Made in USA wrote:

BRITISH TERROR SCHOOLS FOR PATSIES

A window into the London state-sponsored synthetic terror milieu came in December 2001, when British authorities were forced to arrest and question Mark Yates, a self- styled security expert who ran a firearms training camp in Alabama, Yates was suspected of helping Islamic terrorist patsies from Britain who were to hone their marksmanship skills on American soil before going off to fight for Islamic causes around the globe. Yates, a British bodyguard and firearms trainer who had operations in both the United Kingdom and the United States, allegedly offered "live fire" weapons training in America for aspiring holy warriors. British police thought that Yates was involved on the US end of the "Ultimate Jihad Challenge" training program offered on the London market by the Sakina Security Services company, owned by Suleiman Bilal Zain-ul-abidin. Yates, who was also the operations and training director at the Ground Zero firearms training camp outside Marion, Alabama, denied everything. "Ultimate Jihad Challenge" included instruction in "art of bone breaking," and learning to "improvise explosive devices." British Moslems would be given the opportunity to squeeze off up to 3,000 rounds at a shooting range in the United States before heading off to fight for Islamic causes around the world. "All serious firearms training must be done overseas" because of British gun laws, advertising for the course noted. British prosecutors said their investigators had searched Zain-ul-abidin's apartment and seized documents believed to be related to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, anti-Semitic material and what appeared to be disabled firearms, including a rifle and two handguns. The Sunday Telegraph reported about another military training course, this time at a secret camp near the village of Yetgoch in southern Wales. Young Moslems and others learned how to use Uzi machine guns at the camp, which was run by Trans Global Security International.

The reports of the Welsh training camp rekindled a debate in Britain over how the UK had become a hotbed for military recruitment by radical Islamic elements. Sheik Omar Bakri Mohammed, a firebrand Islamic leader in London, founder of the fundamentalist al-Muhajiroun organization, and Bin Laden's sometime spokesman, said in 2000 that between 1,800 and 2,000 British Moslems were going abroad each year for military training. "We find young men in university classes or mosques, invite them for a meal and discuss. ..ongoing attacks being suffered by Moslems in Chechnya, Palestine or Kashmir ," Bakri Mohammed said. "We. ..make them understand their duty to support the jihad (holy war) struggle verbally, financially and, if they can, physically in order to liberate their homeland." Bakri's al-Muhajiroun group, like al Qaeda, advocated wiping out the world's 50-plus existing Moslem-majority states and replacing them with a single "khilafah" (caliphate), or Islamic state. (Sunday Telegraph, MSNBC, December 27, 2001)

Satellite phone records of a phone used by Osama bin Laden during 1996-98, revealed that "Britain was at the heart of the terrorist's planning for his worldwide campaign of murder and destruction," according to the London Sunday Times. Bin Laden and his most senior aides made more calls to Britain than to any other country; they made more than 260 calls from Afghanistan to 27 numbers in Britain. According to documents from the trial of the US east African embassy bombings, the telephone was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Sa ad al Fagih, 45, the head of the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. Al Fagih had been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime. The records showed calls to ten other countries, the next most frequent after the UK being Yemen. There were no calls to Iraq. (London Sunday Times, March 24, 2002)

AL QAEDA AND LONDONISTAN

The role of London as the leading center of Islamic radicalism has been an open secret for years, but has never been reported by the US controlled corporate media. In the nineteenth century, when Mazzini and Marx operated out of London, the slogan was that "England supports all revolutions but her own." In the post-colonial world, the British have found it to their advantage to encourage violent movements which could be used for destabilizations and assassinations in the former colonies, which their ex-masters did not want to see become strong and effective modern states. Between 1995 and 1999, protests were lodged by many countries concerning the willingness of the British government to permit terror groups to operate from British territory. Among the protestors were: Israel, Algeria, Turkey, Libya, Yemen, India, Egypt, France, Peru, Germany, Nigeria, and Russia. This is a list which, if widely known, might force certain US radio commentators to change their world picture about who is soft on terrorism.

A number of groups which were cited as terrorist organizations by the US State Department had their headquarters in London. Among them were the Islamic Group of Egypt, led by Bin Laden's current right-hand man, Zawahiri, who was a known participant in the plot to assassinate Egyptian President Sadat; this was also the group which had murdered foreign tourists at Luxor in an attempt to wreck the Egyptian tourist industry. Also present in London were Al Jihad of Egypt, Hamas of Palestine, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Algeria (responsible for large-scale massacres in that country), the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which attacked targets in Turkey, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers) of Sri Lanka, who assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi. Sheikh Bakri, Bin Laden spokesman's spokesman, was openly active in London into mid-1998 and later; he gave a press conference after the bombings of the US East African embassies. The killings of figures like Sadat and Rajiv Ghandi should indicate the scale of the destabilization in developing countries of which some of these groups are capable.

Non-Anglo-Saxon press organs have from time to time pointed up the role of London in worldwide subversion. "The track of. ..the GIA leader in Paris leads to Great Britain. The British capital has served as logistical and financial base for the terrorists," wrote Le Figaro on Nov. 3, 1995, in the wake of a murderous terror attack carried out in France. A report by the French National Assembly in October 2001 alleged that London played the key role as clearinghouse for money laundering of criminal and terrorist organizations. On March 3, 1996: Hamas bombed a market in Jerusalem, leaving 12 Israelis dead. A British newspaper reported soon after: "Israeli security sources say the fanatics. ..are funded and controlled through secret cells operating here. ...Military chiefs in Jerusalem detailed how Islamic groups raised £7 million in donations from British organizations." (Daily Express, London, March 5, 1996)

In the midst of a campaign of destabilization against Egypt in the mid-1990s, the semi- official organ of the Egyptian government pointed out that "Britain has become the number one base in the world for international terrorism." (Al Ahram, Cairo, September 7, 1996) Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak noted that ". ..some states, like Britain, give political asylum to terrorists, and these states will pay the price for that." (Al-Hayat, September 18, 1996) British newspapers were also alarmed by the level of lslamic extremist activity they saw around them. By the late 1990s, there were so many Islamic extremists in London that the city had acquired the nickname of "Londonistan." The leading right-wing paper in the UK wrote: "Britain is now an international center for Islamic militancy on a huge scale. ..and the capital is home to a bewildering variety of radical Islamic movements, many of which make no secret of their commitment to violence and terrorism to achieve their goals." (London Daily Telegraph, November 20, 1999) President Putin of Russia saw a direct link between the London Islamic scene and terrorism in his own country. He said in an interview with a German news magazine: "In London, there is a recruitment station for people wanting to join combat in Chechnya. Today -- not officially, but effectively in the open -- they are talking there about recruiting volunteers to go to Afghanistan." (Focus, September 2001)

Brixton Mosque was one of the notorious centers for terrorist recruitment in the heart of London. This was the home base of Zacharias Mousawi, the French citizen put on trial in Alexandria, Va. It was also the home of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber of December 2001. Imam Qureshi of Brixton and others were allowed by the British authorities to preach anti-US sermons to the some 4,000 Moslem inmates in British prisons, and thus to recruit new patsies for the world-wide terror machine. According to Bakri, Bin Laden's spokesman, during the late 1990s 2,000 fighters were trained yearly, including many in the US because of the lax firearms legislation. The rival of Brixton Mosque was the equally redoubtable Finsbury Mosque, the home of the Saudi demagogue al Masri, who was finally taken into custody in the spring of 2004. There is every reason to believe that London is one of the main recruiting grounds for patsies, dupes, fanatics, double agents, and other roustabouts of the terrorist scene.