The was a medieval European wolf hunting tool where the hook was concealed inside a chunk of meat that would impale any unsuspecting wolf gulping the meat in one movement.
Names and symbols
Other German names include ("wolf anchor", the crescent-shaped bar holding the hook), ("wolf hook"), and ("double hook"); French names include ("fish hook"), ("fish hook for wolves") and ("wolf iron"), as well as crampon ("iron hook"). The symbol can be found as a medieval mason's mark.
The stylized Z-symbol (i.e. excluding the horizontal bar) bears a visual resemblance to the proto-Germanic Eihwaz rune (meaning "yew"), historically part of the ancient runic alphabet.
Peasant revolts
Academic Akbar Ahmed writes that the was adopted by 15th-century German peasants during revolts against oppressive German princes and their foreign mercenaries, and thus became an important early popular Germanic symbol of independence and liberty.
In modern German-language heraldic terminology, the name is used for a variety of heraldic charges, including the from above (i.e. the half-moon shape with a ring that is also called a ), as well as the or crampon (i.e. the Z-shaped or double-hook that is also called a or a , and that can also appear with a ring or a transversal stroke, Ƶ, at the center).
The Z-shaped symbol is found comparatively frequently in municipal coats of arms in Germany, and also in eastern France (see Wolfisheim or Wolxheim), where it is often identified as a . The Ƶ-design is rarer but is found in about a dozen contemporary municipal coats of arms, and is usually (but not exclusively) represented as a reversed Ƶ-shape.
In forestry
In a 1616 boundary treaty concluded between Hesse and Brunswick-Lüneburg, the Brunswick forest boundary marker was called a (a horizontal Wolfsangel). There is also evidence of its use in correspondence from the Forest Services in 1674.
Later, the was also used as a symbol on forest uniforms. In a 1792 document regarding new uniforms, chief forester Adolf Friedrich von Stralenheim suggested a design for uniform buttons including the letters "GR" and a symbol similar to the , which he called . Later the was also worn as a single badge in brass caps on the service and on the buttons of the Hanoverian forest supervisor. In Brunswick, it was prescribed for private forests and gamekeepers as a badge on the bonnet.
As a Nazi symbol
In Nazi Germany, the symbol was widely adopted in Nazi symbolism. It is not clear whether the driver of its adoption was Hitler's strong personal association with wolf imagery (the Wolf's Lair for example), or to create an association with the post-15th-century symbol of German independence and liberty, which had a particular relationship to the achievement of German freedom from foreign influence by force.
Post-World War II symbolism
thumb|260px|[[Andriy Biletsky addresses the Second Congress of the Patriot of Ukraine, Kharkiv, 12 April 2008]]
After World War II, public exhibition of the symbol became illegal in Germany if it was connected with Neo-Nazi groups. On 9 August 2018 Germany lifted the ban on the usage of swastikas and other Nazi symbols in video games. "Through the change in the interpretation of the law, games that critically look at current affairs can for the first time be given a USK age rating," USK managing director Elisabeth Secker told CTV. "This has long been the case for films and with regards to the freedom of the arts, this is now rightly also the case with computer and videogames."
Outside of Germany, the symbol has been used by some Neo-Nazi organizations such as in the United States where Aryan Nations organization uses a white -like symbol with a sword replacing the cross-bar in its logo. The US-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) database, as well as other non-governmental organisations, In Italy, the was the symbol used by the far right movement Terza Posizione.
In Ukraine, far-right movements like the Social-National Party of Ukraine and the Social-National Assembly, as well as the Azov Regiment of the Ukrainian army, have used a similar symbol of ꑭ (an elongated centre bar and the Z being rotated but untypically not reversed; The group claim that the symbol is a composite of the "N" and the "I", for their political slogan (Ukrainian for "National Idea", and deny any connection or attempt to draw a parallel with the regiment and Nazism. Political scientist Andreas Umland told Deutsche Welle, that though it had far-right connotations, the Wolfsangel was not considered a fascist symbol by the general population in Ukraine. The Reporting Radicalism initiative from Freedom House notes that "Accidental use of this symbol or its use without an understanding of its connotations (for example as a talisman) is rare", and "... in Ukraine, the use of a Wolfsangel as a heraldic symbol or a traditional talisman would be uncharacteristic".
In 2020, there was a brief trend of Generation Z TikTok users tattooing a "Generation Ƶ" symbol on the arm as "a symbol of unity in our generation but also as a sign of rebellion" (in the manner of the 15th-century peasant's revolts). The originator of the trend later renounced it when the use of the symbol by the Nazis was brought to her attention.
See also
- List of symbols designated by the Anti-Defamation League as hate symbols
- Fascist symbolism
- Modern runic writing
- Wolf hunting
- Z with stroke