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On this
webpage is a scientific (diplom) work about organisation and activity
of Hlinka Guard in the Podtatranska Zupa (Region under Tatras).
Why I'm writing you about? There is a most interesting pictorial supplement
there: The sites 97 is depicting set of HG car flags, following site the
flags of HM (Hlinka Youth, Hlinkova Mladez), sites 99 - 100 is showing
BW pictures of uniforms and emblemg of HG (incl. details of the badge with
Tatra eagle, Hlinka double cross and three Svatopluk rods). All these pictures
are scanned from press of that period (semi-official newspaper "Slovak",
1940). All these flags are of the same pattern: blue background, white
roundel, red double cross couped, which was flag of the HSLS and of HG.
On the other hand - flags with cross across the round field (I mean
cross which is reaching the margin of blue field) with no doubt existed.
They are shown on many photographs from 1939 - 1940.
Ales Krizan, 14 Mar 2004
Images after the above mentioned pdf-file, extracted by André Coutance.
All flags have an improvised look - the red Lorraine cross on the white
disk differs from flag to flag, as can be seen on these two images. The
emblems in the cantons also show some variation, but they are too small
for my very limited giffing ability.
Jarig Bakker, 14 Mar 2004
Symbols of Hlinkova Garda/Hlinka Guard (HG) until July 7,1939
1. štandarda hlavného velitela HG/Standard of HG Commander-in-chief,
2. zástavy okresných velitelov HG/colours/flags of district commanders,
3. vlajky a zástavy/flags and banners.
Štandarda hlavného velitela HG was a rectangle 69x88 cm. (basic colour
not given!).
On the right side there was state coat of arms 38 cm high, the inscription
"HG" above it, and the date of Slovak state separation "14. III. 1939"
below. On the left and right lower corner there was "guards cross". On
the left side in the middle (of the fly) there were another guards cross
in the white roundel of diameter 36 cm, above it in the upper semicircle
the inscription
"Naspät cesta nemožná"1. Lower semicircle filled by a half of a crown
of thorns.
In the left upper corner there was inscribed the date of HG founding
"11. VI. 1938", in the upper right one the date of this standard dedication
"14. III. 1941", with the letters "HG" written below. The standard was
bordered by golden stripe wide 0,5 cm and a golden cord 7,5 cm long. Three
rings fixed it with the wooden naturally polished flagstaff. Metallic eagle
with outstretched wings decorated the upper end of the flagstaff.
"Zástava okresných velitelov HG" was made of blue fabric (dimensions
were 110x140 cm). It was fixed by seven metallic clasps (?) to wooden naturally
polished flagstaff. In its middle there is a white roundel (diameter 80
cm) charged by red double cross with bars wide 12 cm. The distance between
two horizontal bars was 18 cm. In the upper left corner (on one side of
the flag only) there was the inscription (white letters high 5 centimetres)
on the black field, which was 9 cm wide. It gave the name of respective
district. The flagstaff pike was made of thick metal, in its middle there
were three hills with double cross.
The flag was bordered by black cord, 5 cm long.
"Gardistická vlajka" was a rectangle with ratio 2:3. In the middle of
the blue field there was with roundel with red double cross. Its axis is
going through the roundels middle in parallel with the fields wide. The
flag was fixed to a rope and it was pulled up to the flagpole or a hoist.
Flagpole could be painted white, blue and red by spiral stripes. Usually
was that flag 200x300 cm. Only for lesser flagstaff the flag 100x150 cm
could be used.
"Gardistická zástava" was similar to the flag mentioned above, but
it was fixed to the pole and its dimensioned depended to circumstances.
It shouldn't be more then three times longer then its wide.
1 Naspät cesta nemožná, napred sa íst musí! (The way back is impossible,
we have to go forward) - a quotation by Ludovít Štúr, Slovakian patriot,
politician, journalist and creator of modern Slovak language.
Used as a program of Slovak national life, the first time said
by Prime minister Jozef Tiso (October, 1, 1939).
Ales Krizan, 22 Mar 2004
According to 'Flagmaster', #73: 3 (1993), the [Hlinková Slovenska]
Ľudová Strana ([Hlinkov's] People's Party [of Slovakia]) was the largest
pre-WWII party in Slovakia, of separatist tendency. After Hlinka's death
in 1938, it became pro-nazi under Josef Tiso, who founded the Hlinka
Guard, later a compulsory organization under the Nazi protectorate.
Its flag was blue with a red double armed cross on a white disk. The colors
are the usual slovakian (pan-slav) ones and the cross is a stylization
of the one in the (again current) slovakian COA.
António Martins, 8 October 1998
The flag of the Hlinka Guard (the militia of the Slovak Peoples Party)
as a red flag with a blue "double cross" in a white cirle (the arms of
the cross reached to the edges of the circle).
Source: David Littlejohn - Forgotten Legions of the Third Reich.
Marcus Wendel, 20 Sep 2000
I'm not sure about the colours of the Hlinka Guard Flag. The guardists used to wear the armband with red double cross on a white circle in blue field. I personnaly saw such a armband in a Museum in Skalica (Western Slovakia, Trnavsky kraj). And the Guard emblem was a golden eagle (like the german Reichsadler on a cap and like the Wehrmachtadler on a badge on the pocket - there on a red circle of cloth) with head turned heraldicaly left (it was "awaiting the danger of East!"), with a white circle bordered blue on its breast. In the circle was a red "double - cross" again, but the upper "balcony" was shorter then the lower one. It was the so called "symbol of Hlinka's National Revival". The eagle held in its claws a red fasces without axe ("rods of Svatopluk").
According to an old legend, the Great - Moravian King Svatopluk (869-894) told his three sons before he resigned to his throne to be concordant. And then he showed them a bunch of rods, which nobody of them could break without dividing it to singular rods.
It is also interesting, that the Hlinka party - flag was used
as fin-flash of Slovak civil airplanes, althoug it never fully replaced
the national flag.
Aleš Križan, 16 Nov 2000
I'm sorry but newer heard about red flag with blue double cross on white
(from the book "Forgotten legions of the Third Reich", so this must be
erroneous description of HG flag).
Ales Krizan, 14 Mar 2004
Mr. Roman Klimes, who researched the Bratislava WWII archives, never
heard of the red flag with the blue cross. Phantasy?
Jens Pattke, 17 Mar 2004
On the Rothschilds
homepage one reads:
"The five arrows remain an enduring symbol of the Rothschild name.
But why arrows at all? The clue is in the work of Moritz Oppenheim, the
"painter of the Rothschilds". A sketch in oils depicts the story told by
Plutarch of Scilurus who, on his deathbed, asked his sons - five are depicted
by Oppenheim - to break a bundle of darts. When they all failed, he showed
them how easily the arrows could be broken individually, cautioning them
that their strength as a family lay in their unity."
Seems like King Svatopluk liked reading stories about ancient Greeks...
Santiago Dotor, 16 Nov 2000
Scilurus, or Scylurus was a Scythian king c. 110 BC in the region north
of the Crimea; he struck coins at Olbia, at the mouth of the Southern Bug
river, and had his capital in Neapolis, on the outskirts of of Simferopol
in the Crimea. The cited story is from 'Apophthegms of Kings and Great
Commanders', perhaps not written by Plutarchus. His son Palakus was the
last Scythian king.
Sources: A
history of the Scythians., and a
site with classical stories.
Jarig Bakker, 17 Nov 2000