Runes and misuse: recognizing hate symbols

How to read the labels Historical what the old sources say. Later tradition what later writers added. Modern modern practice and my own notes.

If you spend any time with runes, you will eventually meet the uncomfortable part of their story: some runes were taken up by the Nazi movement, and a few are still misused by hate groups today. I want to tell that story calmly and factually, because understanding it is the best protection against it, and because the runes deserve better than to be handed over to the people who misuse them.

On this page I describe hate symbols in words only. I do not show them or explain how they are built. The aim is to help you recognize misuse, not to catalog it.

First, keep perspective

Almost every use of runes you will meet is innocent: museum displays, scholarship, Heathen religious practice, fantasy art, jewelry, tattoos and rune reading. Most rune readers and most Heathens reject racism. A rune on its own is not a hate symbol, and treating every rune as suspicious harms the many people who use them in good faith. What follows is about the small number of cases where context makes a symbol hateful.

A short history of misuse

Later tradition In the nineteenth century, alongside real scholarship, a set of ideas grew up in German-speaking lands that treated the ancient Germanic peoples as a superior race. This was the völkisch movement, and runes became one of its emblems.

The key figure is the Austrian writer Guido von List (1848 to 1919). In 1902, after a cataract operation left him temporarily blind for eleven months, he said the secret of the runes was revealed to him in a vision. He created a new row of eighteen “Armanen” runes, loosely based on the Younger Futhark, and published it in 1908 as Das Geheimnis der Runen. The Armanen runes are not a historical alphabet. They are an early twentieth-century invention, and several runic emblems later used by the Nazis come from List’s row rather than the ancient futhark.

After 1933, several organizations of the Nazi state adopted runic or rune-like emblems. The best known is the SS emblem, designed in 1933 by Walter Heck from List’s “sig” rune, itself based on Sowilo. Forms of Othala appeared in the insignia of two Waffen-SS divisions and the SS Race and Settlement Main Office, and a form of the z-rune, renamed the “life rune,” was used by the SS’s Lebensborn program. Heinrich Himmler’s adviser on such matters, Karl Maria Wiligut, claimed ancestral memories of an ancient Germanic religion and designed the SS honor ring.

None of this has anything to do with the people who carved the Vimose comb, the Jelling stone or the Bryggen love notes. It is a modern ideology dressed in borrowed clothes. For the wider history, see where runes come from.

Three kinds of symbols to know about

Modern After the Second World War, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups took up some of the same symbols. It helps to sort what you see into three kinds.

1. Specific runes in specific forms and contexts. The runes most often misused are Othala, especially in a variant with extra strokes at its feet; Algiz, especially when called the “life rune” and used as a group logo; and Sowilo, especially when doubled and stylized to imitate the SS emblem. Tiwaz and Hagalaz also sometimes appear. Often it is the stylized form, not the plain rune, that signals extremist use.

2. Emblems built from the Armanen runes. Many Nazi emblems were based on List’s invented row, not the historical runes. Knowing this helps you separate them from the futhark.

3. Signs that are not runes at all. The Wolfsangel is a hooked heraldic emblem that began as a symbol of a wolf trap; it has no equivalent in any runic row. The so-called Black Sun is a wheel-like design based on a floor mosaic made during the SS rebuilding of Wewelsburg Castle (1936 to 1942); the name was popularized much later, in a 1991 novel. Icelandic magical staves such as the Vegvísir are also not runes, and are rarely used by hate groups, but they are often confused with runes online.

How to recognize misuse: questions to ask

The Anti-Defamation League, which keeps the best-known public database of hate symbols, makes the point itself: these symbols must be judged in context. An o-rune in a museum, a Scandinavian place-name, a Heathen’s personal practice or a medieval inscription is not a hate symbol. The same shape on a flag beside other extremist emblems is. When you are unsure, ask:

If the answers point to hate, the symbol is being misused, even if the rune itself is ancient. Some groups also write slogans in runes, or use numbers and abbreviations as codes, because they look harmless to outsiders. I do not list them here. If a runic text appears in an unexpected place, transliterating it can be worthwhile.

Ancestry claims

One idea often travels with misused runes: that the runes “belong” to people of a particular ancestry, or that ancestry gives someone a natural gift for them. That idea comes straight from the völkisch history above, and it does not fit the evidence. The runes were used by many peoples who traded, migrated and intermarried over centuries, and the modern idea of race did not exist in their world. Your family history may give you a reason to love the runes. It does not give you, or anyone, ownership of them. If a group or teacher tells you otherwise, you have learned something important about that group.

A note on the law

In Germany, section 86a of the Criminal Code makes it a crime to use the symbols of banned unconstitutional organizations, including Nazi organizations, and symbols confusingly similar to them. The law does not name individual runes, and there is no official list. In practice it covers emblems like the SS insignia and certain uses of runes as emblems of banned groups. The same shape in another context may be legal. Laws vary between countries and change over time, so check the current rules where you live or travel. This is a summary for understanding, not legal advice.

Reclaiming carefully: what you can do

It can be tempting to avoid runes altogether. Many scholars and Heathens argue that would be a mistake, because it would hand the symbols to the people who misuse them. Here is what I suggest instead:

• Learn the history. Knowing that the runes are far older than any modern ideology, and that many Nazi emblems came from an invented row of 1902, lets you speak with confidence.
• Use historical forms. Draw runes as they appear in inscriptions, not in the stylized forms of the 1930s.
• Check before you display. Before you wear, tattoo or publish a rune or runic design, check it in a reliable hate-symbol reference and think about how others might read it.
• Speak up kindly. If someone assumes all runes are racist, explain the difference. If someone uses runes to promote hate, you can refuse to stay silent.
• Support inclusive communities. Many Heathen groups have publicly rejected racism, most visibly through Declaration 127, named after Hávamál stanza 127 and signed by around 180 organizations. If you join a group, look for a clear inclusive policy.
• If you see misuse in public, report it to the platform, venue or local authority. If a friend wears something innocently, tell them its history kindly.

A symbol-check habit

Before any rune goes on your skin, your wall or your website, try this:

1. Look the rune or design up in the ADL Hate Symbols Database or a similar reliable reference, and read the context notes.
2. Write two lines in your journal: “Most of the time, this rune is…” and “It becomes a problem when…”.
3. Imagine someone asks you about it. Write two or three sentences you could say about what it means to you and where it comes from.

The point is not to make you anxious. It is to make you informed, so you can use the runes freely and kindly. For more on respect and wearing runes, see runes, ethics and respect.