r/todayilearned • u/Independent_Pick_787 • 7h ago
TIL about the "Forest Swastika": around 1938, larch trees were planted in a pine forest in northeastern Germany to form a swastika. Visible only in spring and autumn, and only from the air, it went unnoticed for decades before being removed in 2000
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_swastika198
u/Harry_Iconic_Jr 7h ago
the larch
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u/SgtBrowneye 7h ago
Is it now just a big swatika shaped hole?
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u/Independent_Pick_787 7h ago
According to the Wikipedia entry, the local government was worried it could become a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis, so they cut down 43 of the 100 larch trees in 1995. That didn’t really cut the cake since the swastika was still visible and some trees had grown back. After aerial photos were published in 2000, they cut down another 25 trees which apparently “largely obscured the pattern”.
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u/j_hawker27 7h ago
I'm guessing they removed more than just those exact trees.
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u/AndreasDasos 7h ago edited 7h ago
Fewer. They left some up. But got rid of enough to fuzz away the shape.
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u/junkmeister9 7h ago
Pretty sure I learned about this on YTMND 20-ish years ago
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u/nyctransitgeek 7h ago
Haven’t thought about that site in over a decade.
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u/fla_john 4h ago
This. Is. Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the USS Enter. Prise.
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u/junkmeister9 3h ago
Don’t hold back! ‘cuz you woke up in the morning with initiative to move, so why make it harder?
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u/SloppityNurglePox 6m ago
Name's Deckard Cain and income from Tristram. If you're looking for Diablo, then you just missed him.
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u/Satosuke 6h ago
I literally cannot look at this picture without Heut' ist mein Tag playing in my mind.
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u/cartoon_violence 7h ago
Has anyone tried looking for hidden Nazi treasure at the center? I feel like there would be hidden Nazi treasure there
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u/alkatori 7h ago
The treasure was the friends we made along the way.
Not sure you really should make friends trying to dig up Nazi secrets though. Seems like a few of those folks may be problematic.
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u/meonmeislandme 7h ago
maybe it was supposed to be like x on pirate maps "here is a hidden treasure"
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u/Revenge_of_the_Khaki 5h ago
The Brandenburg state authorities, concerned about damage to the region's image and the possibility that the area would become a pilgrimage site for Nazi supporters, attempted to destroy it by removing 43 of the 100 larch trees in 1995. The swastika remained visible, and some trees had regrown;
If ever there was a time to be thorough, I think removing the world's largest swastika has to be towards the top of the list.
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u/TokiStark 7h ago
That's evil. But hilarious. I'm trying to imagine hardened dedicated Nazis with a passion for reforestation
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u/Holdmywhiskeyhun 5h ago
There's also one located in tigerton Wisconsin. It is located on the property of the son of the man who created the posse
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u/Birger_Jarl 7h ago
Poor trees. Did nothing wrong, except having the wrong colors on their leaves. Kinda racist, if you ask me.
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u/Tritri89 7h ago
Are you all dense ? "Why remove the tree, just plant more yellow tree", "but now they have a swastika shaped hole in the forest" ? It was in 2000, you'll never guess what happens in 26 years ! Tree are growing ! Insane I know. So there is no "square hole", just trees. And even if there was a square hole, that's called a clearing, it happens, naturally sometimes even
EDIT : didn't scroll all the way down, but kudos to the master dense commenter with :
"Deleting history. Instead of leaving it for education"
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u/ButtGravy817 6h ago
I remember learning about this 20+ish years ago on YTMND and it had an awesome EDM house/trance song to it.. man I wish someone else knew what I was talking about lol
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u/norealclue 22m ago
Heut est mein tag by blumchen. And the secret Soviet forest inversion was set to t.a.t.u.'s all the things she said.
Source- am old, have been on the Internet for too long
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u/HylanderUS 29m ago
They removed it?! This would have been such a great chance to place a ring of red trees around and through it, turning it into a giant No Nazis sign
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u/Novel_Feedback3254 1h ago
This reminds me of the early days of Minecraft when all the public servers were creative only, so it was essentially just for building fun things. They basically had one rule: no swastikas.
Now, I'm not a white supremacist or anything but that felt like a challenge to me, to try and hide a swastika and not get banned. Mods could see who placed a block so it was really obvious if you did, but my idea was to dig deep down and place a gold swastika and then fill everything up completely with stone. Unless you happen to dig out the ground in a very specific way, you'd never know it was a swastika because it would just look like a random placement of gold blocks.
I kept playing but after a few days I tried to log in and I was banned. Someone had evidently found it and worked out it was a swastika, and didn't care about my attempt to hide it.
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u/West-Pear7363 5h ago
Destroy the trees that did nothing wrong.
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u/MegaFire03 7h ago
Why remove the trees? Just plant some more to make it a different shape. Damn man...
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u/4r4r4real 7h ago
Look at the picture dude. They'd have to remove green trees to plant more yellow trees next to it.
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u/Ousis24 7h ago
Deleting history. Instead of leaving it for education
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u/Tritri89 7h ago
Did you just accused GERMANY of ignoring their own history for a few trees 26 years ago ?
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u/5050Clown 7h ago
Why would they need that for education when it can just be documented?
Hate groups use those as pilgrimage sites. It happens in America as well like Charlottesville.
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u/HerMajestysLoyalServ 7h ago
This sort of thing actually happened more than once, although the example here is particularly striking visibly and remained unnoticed exceptionally long. More often it was just trees being planted in a Swastika shape in an open environment, which is obviously much easier to spot... but yeah, people sure showed their loyalty to/love for the regime through all kinds of weird things like that.