An angular eagle behind the defense secretary departed from the Pentagon’s established branding. Critics saw echoes of the Third Reich.

A reimagined “Department of War” logo displayed behind Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a recent speech drew immediate comparisons to Third Reich iconography.

Speaking to Air Force Academy cadets on Saturday, Hegseth stood in front of a monochrome logo for his agency that differs from the designs in the Defense Department’s official branding guide. The backdrop features a stylized eagle that critics compared to the straight-edged Reichsadler used by Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

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[–] 161 points 1 month ago (6 children)

It's not accidental, it's intentional.

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  • [–] 48 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Yuuup. I’m waiting for they stop pretending they’re not following the Hitler playbook.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Pretty sure you could have stopped waiting back when they put up concentration camps

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  • [–] 82 points 1 month ago* (6 children)

    The DOD eagle is very close to the shape used, just with a slight swoop to the top of the wings.

    Sometimes the wings have been pretty straight.

    Both of those were taken from .mil pages. The major difference is in the straight horizontal feathers, which does match the Reichsadler.

    It's questionable, but I don't think this is a slam dunk you take to your Fox News parents

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Fox News parents are already gone lol

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    i mean. the fox news parents are already probably nazis anyway.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    Or so twisted they'll not be able to get out without professional help. It's pretty culty and people spend their lives getting over that stuff.

    There's a pretty common thread of thought that they are ushering in the apocalypse, or in it already or something. That thought process takes a lot of work to prop up and nurture and a lot of that is internal. Who knows what that crash out will look like.

    All the Nazi stuff is pretty concerning, but I believe that's more of an issue for military aged men than anyone else and society already has a way to deal with that.

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  • [–] 14 points 1 month ago*

    If I had a hindu swastika outside a temple and wanted "do a modern redesign" I'd definitely avoid rotating it by 45 degrees, removing the inner circles, and choosing a red, black, and white color pallet.

    If I happen to do that by mistake. I'd definitely absolutely understand when someone pointed out that my "modern design" just suspiciously made it look MORE like a Nazi symbol. Which would clearly be the opposite intention behind a symbol that already has a similar look.

    Point being. If we have imagery or symbols from the past that are similar to a white supremacist genocidal state and we were doing a "redesign" there is no possible way a well intention person could accidentally make it "more Nazi looking".

    It's on purpose. It's not gonna help your fox news parents. True. But anyone with a brain can understand what is being done here.

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  • [–] 48 points 1 month ago (2 children)
  • [–] 40 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 34 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Other than the guy standing in front of it, pretty well a duplicate

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  • [–] 32 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    You mean aside from the blatantly obvious Nazi uniforms for Space Force?

    And the recent Iowa repubs convention literally show hitler speeches?

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  • [–] 26 points 1 month ago (5 children)
  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    That's sort of disturbing itself given the symbology of an olive branch.

    Also, why did they change it from 13 stars (from the original colonies I think) to 5? Nazis are VERY image based people (so much so they would probably get classified as a personality disorder thinking about it, self-harm, cognitive dissonance, splitting) so they mean everything they show.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    One for each of the seven branches of the military

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'm Irish and I've hated the American war machine my whole life.

    I was comparing Bush to Hitler twenty years ago and calling your soldiers Nazis ever since.

    Sad to see it come this far, and with such popularity.

    The world is truly broken and there are dark, dark times on the horizon.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    I was comparing Bush to Hitler twenty years ago and calling your soldiers Nazis ever since.

    The original German Nazis were (partially) inspired by fascist (and racist and anti-semetic) movements in the USA.

    They even visited America in the mid 1930s to gather some ideas.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The US Government has a history of letting fascists in America get away with attempting to take over the country. They wait a few decades and then give it another shot, learning how to do it better each time.

    If we don't put these people in prison for serious time, we will have them at it again soon and they'll be even stronger.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago*

    The problem with prison is we have over 100 million of these roaches infesting our nation. We simply don't have the room or the manpower. Plus, allowing conservatives to continue to live and breed will only result in more of them to deal with in the future.

    Conservatives have been telling us "The south will rise again!" over and over since 1865. It sounds like they are begging us to finish the civil war. Let's do them that favor. Let's finish Sherman's work and bring us all some closure.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago

    On purpose Nazi is Hegseth and MAGAs thing though

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago

    Long before this he was showing signs.

    Hail hydra i guess, issue is only the dumbest heads remain.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    When the chest tattoo matches the drapes...

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago*
    [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    People need to wake the fuck up and open their fucking eyes NOW.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    They needed to wake the fuck up and open their eyes when their country decided "The Department of Homeland Security" was a very normal thing. If they didn't then, or at Citizens United, or at masked agents shooting citizens in the street, they won't now.

    They will do nothing. Americans will roll over, allow it to escalate, and accept the escalation as the new normal. Watch.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Not sure this is surprising given how ultra-nationalist both the 3rd Reich and Magats are.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    He just needed fElon there in the audience throwing his heart out to him to really sell how un-nazi like he is.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    America has always been a bit nazi. Even the surfers

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I mean the black cross really isn't a Nazi symbol. It is a Prussian symbol long predating the Nazi regime, derived from the cross of the German Order, still in use by the German Bundeswehr to this day and we all know how thoroughly Germany is in not using any Nazi symbols anymore (and also making their depiction a crime).

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    On the bright side I do not think that AI models generate Nazi speeches, so at least he wrote the Nazi speech himself.

    Wait that is not bright at all

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    We already have camps, if Democrats don't win midterms they will start sending transpeople to them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Does anyone remember Die Hard 2? There is a scene in it that movie that those kind of things happening in the USA remind me. In a military truck a soldier (Corporal Telford) has his throat slit by his superior (Major Grant) while the rest of the soldiers just sit there idly. He was killed because he was not one of "them".

    spoiler: a drastic photo from the mentioned movie scene

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Oops! They said the quiet part loud.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago* (1 child)

    And there was no significant push-back.

    Again.

    America is already lost.

    Anyone who thinks the mid-terms alone will fix everything is dreaming.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago*

    Any outcome that permits fascists to live will result in continued fascism.

    We have over 100 million fascists infesting our country. There is no peaceful or bloodless solution and people on the left absolutely refuse to do what is needed to erase the fascists. We aren't even allowed to discuss it openly.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (1 child)

    Absurd. So many flags and symbols have an eagle in this exact. same. position. There are enough real problems without this kind of absolute shite.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    While I agree - Nazis are image focused. They have to look powerful, and look victimized, look successful, look like they know what they're doing.

    It's not entirely a distraction - its a warning sign that they don't intend to ensure peace.

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  • [+] -33 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Symbols are for the symbol minded. I care about fascist policy, not iconography. He could stand in front of a bust of Hitler for all I care just so long as he stops murdering fisherman, Iranian kids, and heroic drug smugglers.

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