Last modified: 2023-11-25 by 
zachary harden
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image by Jānis Stūrītis, António Martins
and
Tomislav Todorović, 23 March 2016
See also:
I found another very interesting poster showing a
crimson red
horizontal flag, with a yellow swastika and two crossed white stars. It is
the flag of the Pērkonkrusts (Thunder cross) a "Latvian
ultra-nationalist, anti-German and anti-Semitic political party founded
in 1933 by Gustavs Celmiņ, borrowing elements of German
nationalism - but being unsympathetic to German National Socialism at
the time - and Italian fascism, (which) was outlawed in 1934 and
dissolved in 1944, when Celmiņ, who had initially returned to work in
the occupying German administration, was imprisoned." Its flag is seen
here.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%93rkonkrusts
Esteban Rivera, 22 March 2016
"Crossed white stars" are actually a cross crosslet.
As Wikipedia, also states, Thunder Cross was refounded after Latvia had regained
its independence - several times, each time banned shortly afterwards, always
under the leadership of an Igors ikins.
After the last ban, a Gustavs Celmiņ Center was founded, under the same
leadership and the same flag. Photo of the flag used by one of these "incarnations"
can be found here. (image)
Dark red field (same as the national flag), white cross crosslet and golden (old
gold) swastika are clearly recognizable.
Tomislav Todorović, 22 March 2016
Image adapted with credit to
Jānis Stūrītis; source given is Armands Paeglis' book "Pērkonkrusts pār
Latviju" (not a Vexillology book).
António Martins, 22 March 2016
I made after the following source
photo. The shape is more oblong (about 3:5), the shade of red is that of
Latvian national flag and the swastika has thicker arms.
Source:
http://tautastribunals.eu/?p=1837
Tomislav Todorović, 23 March 2016
To explain the symbolism of this flag, one has to bear in mind that members
of the Thunder Cross advocated rejection of Christianity as a religion of
foreign origin and its replacing with
Dievturība a Latvian
neo-pagan religious movement which was founded in 1925. In that religion, cross
crosslet and swastika are symbols, respectively, of Māra and Laime, the
highest-ranking goddesses, which are considered to make a trinity with the
supreme god Dievs. The symbols of these and other deities are shown at the
website of Dievturība
community.
From the photos found at the same website, it is clear that a wooden cross
crosslet (krustukrusts), or Māra's Cross (Māras krusts) makes an important
part of the altar. Photo of the altar is available
here and an enlarged photo of
the cross itself is available here.
Tomislav Todorović, 26 March 2016
image by
Tomislav Todorović, 27 April 2016
In 1990s, and possibly some time during 2000's, Thunder Cross was using
another flag, where a narrow white swastika with much wider dark red borders (pattern
modeled after the Latvian national flag) was placed in center and a small dark
green cross crosslet ("Māra's Cross") was placed in canton, all on white field.
A photo, no longer online, could be found
here (saved
image).
A black and white photo from the same source, also no longer online, saved here,
gives an incomplete view of the same flag. Note the text along the
bottom edge, which dates the photo in the year 1996. Finally, another
color photo, again with the incomplete view of the flag, was
originally found here (saved
image)
The flag seems not to be in use any longer, for only the flags with
the original design can currently be seen on the Web.
Tomislav Todorović, 27 April 2016
The flag use in the 2000s is verified by two YouTube videos recorded in the
said period. The first of those, taken on 2008-11-18, is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=173&v=2w8IOQt__s0&feature=emb_logo
The flag is visible in many intervals during the video, but the details are
generally not very discernible because it was taken by night. They are the best
discerned @1:33-1:53, @2:10-2:15 and @2:25-2:36. Another video, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=21&v=8mgg0cmKXlE&feature=emb_logo
is claimed to have been taken in summer 2009 (impossible to verify - only the
uploading date of 2011-07-16 is presented). There, the flag is visible
throughout most of its duration, but is rarely unfolded enough to see al the
details, which are the best discernible @0:23-0:27 and @7:20-7:25.
Tomislav Todorovic,
12 April 2020
image by
Tomislav Todorović, 12 April 2020
After the Thunder Cross was banned in 2006, the Gustavs Celmiņ Center (Gustava
Celmiņa centrs) was founded in the same year. It has maintained an online
presence since at least 2009, the URL being derived not from its official name,
but from that of the Thunder Cross [1]. However, by early 2017 [2, 3] the
official name was removed from the site, the organization beginning to operate
more openly as the renewed Thunder Cross, even though that name does not seem to
be officially re-adopted. Ever since its creation, the website bore the image of
a logo: black diamond, charged with white swastika upon dark red cross crosslet,
all within the border patterned like the national flag of Latvia. The same
design has also been appearing as the sleeve patch on the members' uniforms [4,
5], which are essentially the same as used until 1944:
http://propagandahistory.ru/pics/2014/03/1395416145_8897.jpg, the gray
shirts being their most important part. The shirts' color appears as the field
of the newest Thunder Cross flag, which is charged with the described logo. The
earliest recorded appearance of the flag was in Riga, at the rally before the
Freedom Monument on 2017-07-01 [6]. The flag was used again, together with the
national flag and two previous movement flags, at the Latvian Republic
Proclamation Day celebration in Riga on 2018-11-18 [7, 8, 9, 10]; the case was
brought before the court [11], but dismissed, with the explanation that no law
was broken by the flags' use [12, 13]. The flag was also used, together with the
national flag only, at the protest before the Embassy of France on 2019-02-09,
organized as the support to the Yellow Vest protests in France [14, 15]. On
2019-07-01, at another rally before the Freedom Monument, these two flags were
used together again [16].
Sources:
[1] Gustavs Celmiņ Center website
at Internet Archive - Home page (saved on 2009-09-11):
http://web.archive.org/web/20090911031828/http://www.perkonkrusts.lv/
[2] Gustavs Celmiņ Center website at Internet Archive - Home page (saved on
2013-06-14 - last pre-2017 saving):
http://web.archive.org/web/20130614151423/http://perkonkrusts.lv/
[3]
Gustavs Celmiņ Center / Thunder Cross website at Internet Archive - Home page
(saved on 2017-05-02):
http://web.archive.org/web/20170502234005/http://perkonkrusts.lv/
[4]
Latvian Republic People's Tribunal website:
https://tautastribunals.eu/?p=1837
[5] Diena.lv website:
https://www.diena.lv/raksts/latvija/zinas/drosibas-policija-velas-aizliegt-gustava-celmina-centru-un-aizsargu-organizaciju-13980691
[6] YouTube - Video from the Thunder Cross rally at the Freedom Monument in
Riga on 2017-07-01:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9h7BkP2zUE&feature=emb_logo
[7] The
Coordination Forum for Countering Antisemitism website:
https://antisemitism.org.il/en/136251/
[8] RusNext website:
https://rusnext.ru/news/1544503682
[9] Latvian National Front website:
http://fronte.lv/2019/02/muzsenais-svetais-simbols-svastika-1-dala/svastika-pie-brivibas-pieminekla/
[10] Spektr.Press website:
https://spektr.press/drevnij-simvol-policiya-bezopasnosti-zainteresovalas-svastikoj-na-prazdnovanii-100-letiya-latvii-lish-cherez-neskolko-dnej/
[11] RuBaltic.ru website:
https://www.rubaltic.ru/news/06022019-v-sud-peredali-delo-o-svastike-na-shestvii-v-chest-100letiya-latvii/
[12] EurAsia Daily website:
https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2019/03/12/latviyskiy-sud-ne-usmotrel-narusheniya-v-svastike-v-centre-rigi
[13] Press.lv website:
https://press.lv/post/eto-ne-svastika-sud-opravdal-shishkinsa-za-flag-18-noyabrya-u-pamyatnika-svobody/
[14] YouTube - Protest before the Embassy of France in Riga on 2019-02-09:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=242&v=YeTG9VPB8bM&feature=emb_logo
[15] Gustavs Celmiņ Center / Thunder Cross website - Photo gallery from the
protest before the Embassy of France in Riga on 2019-02-09:
https://perkonkrusts.lv/dzeltenas-vestes-pie-francijas-vestniecibas/
[16] YouTube - Video from the Thunder Cross rally at the Freedom Monument in
Riga on 2019-07-01:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1239&v=ZMHPpHh1lxg&feature=emb_logo
Tomislav Todorović, 12 April 2020
