Skrewdriver, long defunct, is the British white power music band that essentially created white power music as a genre. The band, and its deceased leader, Ian Stuart Donaldson, remain held in the highest esteem by white supremacists.
All the symbols depicted here must be evaluated in the context in which they appear. Few symbols represent just one idea or are used exclusively by one group. For example, 100% is often used as an amount or an expression and it is also used by some by some white supremacists as shorthand for "100% white." Similarly, other symbols in this database may be significant to people who are not extreme or racist. The descriptions here point out significant multiple meanings but may not be able to relay every possible meaning of a particular symbol.
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Soldiers of Aryan Culture (SAC) is a large Utah-based white supremacist prison gang. The two symbols most commonly used by the gang are 1) the group's initials, SAC, and 2) a swastika interwoven with an Iron Cross.
ALTERNATE NAMES: SAC
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The Solid Wood Soldiers are a Texas-based white supremacist prison gang. Their primary tattoo consists of the initials SWS, with the two S's represented by lightning bolts. Above the initials appears the image of a bear claw, with the number 4 in the middle and sometimes the letters HCRL.
ALTERNATE NAMES:
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ALTERNATE NAMES: Black Sun The word “Sonnenrad” is German for “sunwheel.” Generically, sunwheels constitute a large class of longstanding symbols that can vary significantly but which generally share the basic principle of several straight or crooked lines emanating from a central point or circle (thus being abstracted suns and sunrays). Examples include sun crosses, triskeles/triskelions, kolovrats and swastikas, among others. Sunwheels of various kinds…
ALTERNATE NAMES: Black Sun
The word “Sonnenrad” is German for “sunwheel.” Generically, sunwheels constitute a large class of longstanding symbols that can vary significantly but which generally share the basic principle of several straight or crooked lines emanating from a central point or circle (thus being abstracted suns and sunrays). Examples include sun crosses, triskeles/triskelions, kolovrats and swastikas, among others. Sunwheels of various kinds appear in the traditional symbology of many countries and cultures, including Old Norse and Celtic cultures.
Most sunwheel designs are unrelated to hate or white supremacy, but some do have such associations in certain contexts, such as the swastika. One specific sunwheel design, typically referred to as a “Sonnenrad” or “Black Sun” symbol, has a very specific association with white supremacy, having been invented by the Nazis in the 1930s. It first appeared as a mosaic in a castle in Wewelsburg in Germany that was owned and remodeled by Hitler’s SS.
Following World War II, neo-Nazis in Europe and elsewhere embraced the SS’s Sonnenrad symbol, giving it a new life. In the U.S., its usage eventually spread beyond neo-Nazis to other types of white supremacists as well. This Sonnenrad or Black Sun symbol consists of two concentric circles orbiting a center solid circle, with 12 evenly spaced lightning-bolt-like rays emanating from the center point.
While the center circle of the original design was filled or solid, modern white supremacists frequently swap out the solid circle for an additional hate symbol, often a runic symbol, swastika or some other neo-Nazi symbol.
Unlike many other types of sunwheel symbols, which may have a hate-related usage only in certain contexts, or not at all, the specific Nazi-derived Sonnenrad/Black Sun symbol is almost always used as a white supremacist symbol.
In 1928, a few years after unionization, South Africa adopted its first national flag, which consisted of a past version of the flag of the Netherlands combined with miniature flags representing the different colonies that came together to form South Africa. After the end of apartheid, South Africa adopted a new national flag in 1994, as the previous flag had come to symbolize the apartheid regime. Since 1994, white supremacists in South Africa and elsewhere around the world, including the…
The Southern Brotherhood is a large, Alabama-based white supremacist prison gang. Read more about the Brotherhood's most common symbol, the shield tattoo.
White supremacy and the SS Bolts. Find out the history of the neo-Nazi SS Bolts, and the current usage of one of the most powerful hate symbols in history.
ALTERNATE NAMES: Cracker Bolts, SS Lightning Bolts, Lightning Bolts
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During World War II, Nazi Germany fielded nearly 40 divisions of the so-called Waffen (or armed) SS, creating a private army for SS leader Heinrich Himmler. These divisions fought on every front of the war in Europe, often committing war crimes and atrocities. After the war, the Nuremburg Tribunal declared the SS a criminal organization. However, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists glorified the Waffen SS and eventually began to use the various divisional insignia of these…
In the 2000s, white supremacists created a handsign intended to memorialize the Schutzstaffeln or SS of Nazi Germany, Hitler's secret police, political army, and concentration camp guards. The handsign utilizes both hands to make a lightning bolt symbol, as a pair of lightning bolts was the main symbol of the SS. Additional Images:
St. Michael’s Cross is a white supremacist symbol that originated in Romania in the years before World War II as the symbol of the fascist Iron Guard movement.
ALTERNATE NAMES: Archangel Michael's Cross, Iron Guard
St. Michael’s Cross, despite its name, is not a traditional Christian symbol but rather a fascist symbol designed by Corneliu Codreanu (1899-1938), a Romanian right-wing extremist who led the Iron Guard/Legion of St. Michael movement (also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael) in the 1920s and 1930s. This symbol became the Iron Guard’s logo until the movement was destroyed during World War II.
The Iron Guard combined fascism, nationalism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity and anti-Semitism. Its symbol, St. Michael’s Cross, consists of three vertical lines and three horizontal lines arranged in a hashtag-like pattern. The design was intended to resemble both a cross as well as stylized prison bars; Codreanu was allegedly inspired by either an icon or a vision of St. Michael during his time in prison in the 1920s. The color green is also often associated with the Iron Guard, because of the green uniforms worn by its members (sometimes called “Green Shirts”).
After the end of World War II, right-wing extremists in Western Europe resurrected many of the symbols of fascist movements of the interwar era; following the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, a similar process occurred in that region. In Romania, right-wing extremists revived St. Michael’s Cross.
Unlike many other fascist or Nazi symbols originating in Europe, the St. Michael’s Cross symbol did not spread much overseas. In the late 2010s, however, some American white supremacists – most notably Matthew Heimbach, who headed a short-lived neo-Nazi group called the Traditionalist Worker Party – “discovered” Codreanu and the Iron Guard, as well as its symbology. Like Codreanu, Heimbach was an avowed adherent of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. A few other American white supremacists trying to blend traditional Christianity with their racist and anti-Semitic beliefs also discovered Codreanu, whose memoirs had been translated into English.
The St. Michael’s Cross symbol received more attention in 2019 following Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant’s deadly shooting spree targeting two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Tarrant had painted white supremacist and anti-Muslim symbols and references on various firearms and ammo magazines that he brought with him on his rampage; one of the firearms featured a version of St. Michael’s Cross.
Stormfront is the oldest and largest white supremacist website on the Internet. Its logo consists of a squarish Celtic Cross encircled by the phrase "White Pride World Whide."
The Sturmabteilung (or SA) symbol is the emblem of Hitler's brownshirted stormtroopers (Sturmabteilung or "storm units" in German). The Sturmabteilung were paramilitary formations used by Hitler to intimidate political opponents and Jews before and after his rise to power in Germany. It declined after 1934 when its leaders were murdered at Hitler's orders and was largely supplanted by the SS. After World War II, some neo-Nazis, especially in Europe, turned to the…
The Supreme White Alliance (SWA) is a hardcore racist skinhead gang based primarily in the Midwest. The gang has used a variety of symbols but the most common include a shield symbol with a laurel wreath and a dog or wolf; and a shield symbol containing a Wolfsangel, a Triskele and the number 43.
ALTERNATE NAMES: SWA
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The Supreme White Alliance is a hardcore racist skinhead gang based primarily in the Midwest. Members sometimes use a two-handed handsign in which four fingers from one hand and three fingers from the other hand are used to represent the number 43. The gang uses 43 as a numeric symbol because the alphanumeric equivalents of the gang's initials (19 for S, 23 for W, and 1 for A), when added together, equal 43.
The swastika is an ancient symbol used in many cultures that was adopted by Adolf Hitler and turned into a symbol of hatred. Since then, the swastika has become perhaps the most notorious hate symbol in Western culture.
ALTERNATE NAMES: Supreme White PowerSWP is an acronym for the white supremacist slogan "Supreme White Power." It seems to have originated on the West Coast, probably in California's prison system, though it has spread from there. Supreme White Power and SWP are both common prison tattoos. One popular version displays the words "Supreme White Power" in a circle around a swastika made up of battle-axes. Usually, below the swastika is a Viking ship. Additional Images:
ALTERNATE NAMES: Supreme White Power
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Terrorgram is a white supremacist network formed to incite violent acts to bring about the collapse of society. It has used several logos, which generally include a Waffen SS shield.
Alternate Names: Terrorgram Collective, Terrorgram Network
Terrorgram emerged in the late 2010s as a loose international network of white supremacist individuals and groups, typically neo-Nazi in nature, seeking to promote violent acts in the service of white supremacist accelerationism. White supremacist accelerationism is a school of thought within the white supremacist movement that argues the only way to create a desired whites-only or white-dominated society is to destabilize and destroy current society through violence and disruption, then build a new society from its ashes. Terrorgram—taking its name from the internet platform Telegram, on which it conducted most of its activities—dedicated itself to accelerationist propaganda, glorifying white supremacist mass killers like Dylann Roof and Brenton Tarrant as “saints” and urging others to follow in their footsteps to commit terrorist attacks and hate crimes against minorities and other targets, such as infrastructure. Their propaganda efforts included producing several lengthy and distinctively illustrated manuals with motivational screeds as well as ostensibly practical advice for would-be terrorists.
In 2024, the U.S. designated Terrorgram as Specially Designated Global Terrorists; later that year, the FBI arrested two key American Terrorgram leaders on a number of charges. The arrests precipitated Terrorgram’s collapse as the network’s remaining members sought to avoid infiltration or identification. However, Terrorgram’s digital publications are still in circulation among accelerationists, meaning that people can still encounter their symbols. Terrorgram logos imitate a Waffen SS divisional shield design, though with their own distinct symbology. One simply features a paper airplane, while a different logo depicts a swastika, an infinity symbol, and a ski mask. A third version features the swastika and ski mask along with part of a Sonnenrad symbol.
The phrase “The Goyim Know” is an antisemitic phrase portraying the ostensible reaction of Jews when their supposedly conspiratorial or manipulative misdeeds are revealed to the public. Often combined with “Shut It Down.”
ALTERNATE NAMES: Da Goyim Know
“The Goyim Know” is an antisemitic catchphrase, used by itself or combined with the related phrase “shut it down,” as in “Oy vey, the Goyim know! Shut it down!” An alternate version is “Da Goyim Know.” It is most associated with the alt right segment of the white supremacist movement and message boards such as 4chan and 8chan.
The language is typically used in references to antisemitic conspiracy theories depicting Jews as malevolent puppet-masters, manipulating the media, banks, and even entire governments to the benefit of themselves but to the detriment of other peoples. The phrase is intended to be understood as spoken by a panicked Jew responding to some occurrence that would ostensibly reveal Jewish manipulations or deceit to non-Jews (i.e., “goyim,” a disparaging Yiddish and Hebrew word for non-Jews).
The implied Jewish speaker in the catchphrase is thus urging fellow Jews to shut down that particular manipulation or deceit and move on to something else. “Can’t let the gullible goyim know that they are supporting free cellphones and internet connections to the boys in the hood,” reads one typical posting from 2012 on the white supremacist website Stormfront. “The Goyim know” meme originated as mocking shorthand for this type of language.
The earliest known references to “The Goyim Know/Shut It Down” appeared in 2013, apparently originating on the discussion forum 4chan. The phrases quickly spread to social media. The meme became more popular in 2014 after an antisemitic song parody featured the phrase. Soon the meme became a staple of online antisemitism.
It didn’t take long before the phrase entered the physical world. In 2017, white supremacists appeared with signs featuring the phrase “The Goyim Know” at several events around the country, including the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The intent behind the “The Goyim Know” signs seemed to be to demonstrate that white supremacists were aware of the conspiracies in which Jews were ostensibly involved.
The Happy Merchant is a very common antisemitic meme popularized by the alt right, featuring a person with exaggerated stereotypically Jewish features and grasping hands, meant to convey a “greedy Jew.”
ALTERNATE NAMES: Jew Face, Merchant Face, Le Happy Merchant
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The Hated is a racist skinhead group active in New Jersey, Florida, and elsewhere. Members use a variety of symbols but one of the most common is a white fist inside a cogwheel, with the number 14 and the words The Hated on the outside.