Culture Fellow Anna Goldenberg October 16, 2014

Mango’s new shirt

After Sears’s swastika ring and Zara’s concentration camp shirt comes another piece of fashion that has incensed the internet: The lightning-like black symbols on the women’s shirt ‘Rayo’ by Spanish fashion company Mango look suspiciously like the runic insignia of the Nazi SS units and the youth organization Jungvolk.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“Why does Mango have this model only for women — weren’t there also male Nazis?” Martin Sonneborn, a German satirist and member of the European Parliament, wrote underneath a photo he posted on his Facebook page on Thursday.

On Twitter, users joked about Mango’s “Eva Braun Collection” and the “total fashion war,” and referred to the shirt as “Nazi chic.” And Ambros Waibel of the left-leaning German daily newspaper taz suggests that the shirt should cost 33,45 instead of 35,99 euro.

The stylized rune, which stands for “Sieg” (victory) was used in its single form by the German Jungvolk of the Hitler Youth, which was the Nazi party’s organization for boys aged 10 to 14. At age 14, they became members of the Hitler Youth.

The paramilitary SS, which used the double rune as their emblem, was founded as Adolf Hitler’s personal guard unit. During the Third Reich it was led by Heinrich Himmler, and was most notorious for being in charge of the concentration camps.

Mango reacted promptly. Several German newspapers quoted a statement from Mango in which the company said that they regret the “unfortunate association.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$90 $180

$360

Other amount