Forest Swastikas In Germany Still Bounded By Msytery

Forest swastikas in Brandenburg, Germany is still a source of mystery, more than two decades after it was discovered.

Forest swastikas (Youtube Screengrab)

Everyone is still trying to figure out how the trees in the forest came to be planted and arranged to look like a swastika, an equilateral cross with four arms bent at 90 degrees which was adopted as a symbol of the Nazi Party in 1920 - the 200-foot-wide symbol was not discovered until 1992.

Some claim that Forest swastikas was laid out in 1937 by locals to prove their loyalty after a businessman in the area was denounced and sent to a concentration camp by the Nazi Party for listening to the BBC. It was also suggested that a zealous forester convinced local Hitler Youth members to plant the trees in commemoration of Adolf Hitler's birthday. Another claim says it was planted by a warden, either out of support for the Hitler regime, or due to an order from state officials.

For a few weeks every year in the autumn and in the spring, the color of the larch leaves in Forest swastikas would change, contrasting with the deep green of the pine forest. The short duration of the effect combined with the fact that the image could only be discerned from the air and the relative scarcity of privately owned aeroplanes in the area meant that the swastika went largely unnoticed after the fall of the Nazi Party. During the subsequent Communist period, Soviet authorities reportedly knew of its existence but made no effort to remove it. However, in 1992, the reunified German government ordered aerial surveys of all state-owned land. The photographs were examined by forestry students, who immediately noticed the design.

Concerned about damage to the region's image and the possibility that the area would become a pilgrimage site for Nazi supporters, The Brandenburg state authorities attempted to destroy the design by removing 43 of the 100 larch trees in 1995. However, the figure remained discernible with the remaining 57 trees as well as some trees which had regrown, and in 2000 German tabloids published further aerial photographs showing the prominence of the swastika. By this time, ownership of around half the land on which the trees sat had been sold into private hands, but permission was gained to fell a further 25 trees on the government-owned area on December 1, 2000, and the image was largely obscured. - Source: Wikipedia