President Trumps 2020 Campaign T-Shirt in Question Over Nazi Similarities
President Donald Trump earlier this month released a new line of merchandise in support of his 2020 Presidential election. With some people calling into question a T-shirt, which bares an American eagle holding the US Flag in its talons, as a symbol with a striking resemblance to that of one used by Hitler and the German Nazi Party of the 1930’s through 40’s. How similar are these images, and is the eagle holding a flag a Nazi symbol?
The imperial eagle, or the Reichsadler, (now known as the Federal eagle or Bundesadler) is a symbol which has been used in the region since before Germany existed as a unified country. As early as the 12th century, the eagle was generally recognized as the emblem of the Holy Roman Empire (1) and has continued to be used up until our modern times. The emblem itself has gone through various slight changes through the years, however we will be focusing on the Eagle used particularly by the Nazi Party, which portrayed a left facing eagle holding an oak wreath with a swastika on the inside (2).
The American bald eagle has been a symbol of the United States, and its national bird, since 1782, first making an appearance on a Massachusetts copper cent coin in 1776. The eagle appears on the countries one-dollar bills, military insignias, the Presidential flag, and with outspread wings on the nation’s seal (3). President Donald Trump is not the first to use the image of an eagle either, with others within the United States system, and previous Presidents also using the image of an eagle in their seal. A good example of a similar styled image is the Mace of the House of Representatives, which lacks the Flag but contains the spread winged eagle. The anti-hate organization, Anti-Defamation League or ADL says, “It is not uncommon, for example, for some Americans to mistake the Blue Eagle logo of the Roosevelt-era National Recovery Administration for a Nazi-derived symbol.”(4) It isn’t just the United States who uses the eagle as a symbol of their country either. Mexico, Albania, and Egypt all use eagle imagery on their nation’s flags as well (5).
One of the first to draw the comparison was, Bend the Ark: Jewish Action, a “movement of tens of thousands of progressive Jews all across the country,”(6) who posted on their Twitter, “Trump & Pence are proudly displaying a Nazi-inspired shirt on their official campaign website. They are promoting genocidal imagery yet again” (7). Tim Murtaugh, Trump’s communications director responded to USA Today with an email response claiming, “This is moronic. In Democrats’ America, Mount Rushmore glorifies white supremacy and the bald eagle with an American flag is a Nazi symbol. They have lost their minds” (8).
The direct similarities between the two can be seen. Both have eagles with outstretched wings, and both eagles face over their left shoulder, looking right when being viewed. Similarly, both images are holding onto a national symbol of their country, the swastika for the Nazi German, and the Flag of the United States of America for President Trump’s T-shirt logo. Differences include the German eagle’s swastika being placed inside a wreath, as well as appearing to be more squared and straight than its American counterpart, and lastly it appears as though Trump’s shirt design holds the flag a little higher and contains the phrase ‘Trump 2020’ at the bottom.
With both countries using the eagle for much of their history, and with the United States having a few run-ins with images that appear to copy Nazi imagery, it’s hard to say definitively whether or not President Trump’s design is a copy or a “dog whistle” to Nazi Germany, leaving many to draw their own conclusions about the image.
-Trent Naz
(1) German Bundestag. 2020. German Bundestag — The Federal Eagle. [online] Available at: <https://www.bundestag.de/en/parliament/symbols/eagle> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(2) En.wikipedia.org. 2020. Coat Of Arms Of Germany. [online] Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Germany> [Accessed 21 July 2020]. (forgive me for using wiki)
(3) Va.gov. 2020. The American Bald Eagle. [online] Available at: <https://www.va.gov/opa/publications/celebrate/eagle.pdf> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(4) ADL, 2020. Nazi Eagle. [online] Anti-Defamation League. Available at: <https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/nazi-eagle> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(5) Kiprop, J., 2018. Countries With Eagles On Their Flags. [online] WorldAtlas. Available at: <https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-eagles-on-their-flags.html> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(6) Bend the Arc: Jewish Action. 2020. Bend The Arc: Jewish Action. [online] Available at: <https://www.bendthearc.us/> [Accessed 26 July 2020].
(7) Jewish, A., 2020. Twitter. [online] Twitter.com. Available at: <https://twitter.com/jewishaction/status/1278342465389543424> [Accessed 26 July 2020].
(8) Peebles, W., 2020. Fact Check: Trump Campaign Accused Of T-Shirt Design With Similarity To Nazi Eagle. [online] Usatoday.com. Available at: <https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/07/11/fact-check-trump-2020-campaign-shirt-design-similar-nazi-eagle/5414393002/> [Accessed 26 July 2020].
(Img1) RsVe, W. and Barliner, W., 2006. Parteiadler Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (1933–1945).Svg. [online] En.wikipedia.org. Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Parteiadler_Nationalsozialistische_Deutsche_Arbeiterpartei_(1933%E2%80%931945).svg> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(Img2) Trump Make America Great Again Committee. 2020. America First Tee. [online] Available at: <https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/america-first-tee-1> [Accessed 22 July 2020].
(Img3) Commons.wikimedia.org. 2020. File:MACE OF HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES LCCN2016866217 (Cropped).Jpg — Wikimedia Commons. [online] Available at: <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MACE_OF_HOUSE_OF_REPRESENTATIVES_LCCN2016866217_(cropped).jpg> [Accessed 25 July 2020]. Harris & Ewing, photographer / Public domain
(Img4) Commons.wikimedia.org. 2020. File:NRA Member, We Do Our Part.Jpg — Wikimedia Commons. [online] Available at: <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NRA_member,_we_do_our_part.jpg> [Accessed 25 July 2020]. National Recovery Administration / Public domain
