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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   11593 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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This page has a picture of Japanese-American troops in the highly-decorated 442nd wearing these coats.

It's kind of curious in this context that the US national eagle adorning the entrance of the Epinal American Cemetery, as pictured on that site, is an almost perfect copy of the Nazi imperial eagle. (The eagle decorating the entrance of the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, on the other hand, is pretty much a copy of the Nazi Party eagle. The difference is kindly explained on Wikipedia.)

That is certainly not the Partieadler, though there are stylistic similarities. The 90 degree difference in wing positioning is significant. The Epinal American Cemetery eagle certainly looks a lot like the Nazi version of the Reichsadler, though. Perhaps that was just the artistic style in vogue at the time and no one thought it looked particularly Nazi.

(The difference between the Partieadler and the Reichsadler is the Partieadler faces to its left and the Reichsadler faces to its right.)

The variant (if one can call it that) with the downward-pointing wings was certainly also in official use. (See this huge gallery from the Third Reich in Ruins site.) One example are the famous bronze eagles at the Luitpold Arena in Nuremberg. I have no idea what the heraldic/symbolic significance of this is, if any; I guess there were also practical considerations at play (cost, size, structural balance).

Aren't there also literal fasces in some of the US government buildings?

Lincoln on his throne rests his hands on two fasces.

No axehead. And as we know, a fasces without an axe is just a faggot.

A fasces without the axe actually has a specific symbolic meaning in the Roman context- it was born inside the pomerium, the sacred ground in which blood could never be shed, by lictors bearing witness to the peaceable power of the magistrate in directing civic functions.

Indeed, but unlike these eagles, those predate the Italian fascist movement.

The ceiling painting in the Painted Hall in Greenwich, London is an allegorical depiction of the Hanoverians bringing the blessings of liberty to Europe and trampling Tyranny (as represented by Louis XIV) underfoot. The angels blessing him hold fasces, which was seen as a sign of ordered liberty at the time, by analogy with the Roman Republic. The docent who provided this explanation was not embarassed by it, although some of the other tourists were.

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