Company type | GmbH |
---|---|
Industry | Fashion Clothing |
Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | , Germany |
Brands | Tønsberg |
Number of employees | c. 160 |
Parent | International Brands General Trading (since 2009) |
Website | thorsteinar |
Thor Steinar is a German clothing brand manufactured by Thor Steinar Mediatex GmbH, a subsidiary of International Brands General Trading, a Dubai-based company.
In Germany, the brand is considered closely associated to neo-Nazism by the Verfassungschutz of the state of Brandenburg. [1] In German media, the brand is most often discussed in the light of this association. Wearing Thor Steinar clothes is expressly forbidden in the Bundestag, the Landtage of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony, and in several football stadiums.
The brand was registered as a trademark by Axel Kopelke in October 2002 and was manufactured by Mediatex GmbH. In March 2009, Mediatex sold the brand to International Brands General Trading, a Dubai-based company. [2]
Since the inception of Thor Steinar, the company has used two logos. Much of the controversy regarding the clothing label revolves around their first logo, featuring a combination of a *tiwaz rune and a *sowilo rune: the runes were so combined that a part of the logo became very similar to the wolfsangel which is used by some organisations with neo-Nazi connections. It was also used by the Nazis as exemplified by the insignia of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich. In addition there is some similarity to the insignia of the Schutzstaffel. The manufacturers of the Thor Steinar brand rejected this interpretation of the original logo. [3]
Their second logo is a Gyfu rune, similar in appearance to a saltire, and has not caused controversy. This rune is known as an apolitical symbol given its historical relationship to pre-Christian mythology.
On occasions, Thor Steinar shops have been attacked with stones or paint bombs. [4]
In Germany, public display of Nazi-associated symbols, as well as glorification of Adolf Hitler and denial of the Holocaust, are illegal (under Strafgesetzbuch section 86a and Strafgesetzbuch paragraph 130, respectively). Despite that, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which collects domestic intelligence for the government, appraises the number of active participants of the far-right movement at around 40,000. [5]
Various authorities and organizations, including Brandenburg Verfassungsschutz , [6] [7] have identified the wearing of Thor Steinar clothes as one of the indications of membership in the far-right subculture.
Wearing the label is prohibited in the German Bundestag and in the Landtags of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony. In addition, several football clubs including Tennis Borussia Berlin, Borussia Dortmund, Werder Bremen, Hamburger SV and Hertha BSC prohibit wearing the label in their stadiums. [8] [9] The online retailer Amazon stopped selling the brand in 2009. [10] Despite this, Amazon has since been criticized for employing internal security guards with far-right connections who wore the same clothing. [10]
Various designs by Thor Steinar have had Norwegian flags and Norwegian names, such as Trondheim, Nordfjord, Nordstrand or Bergen. The official stores selling the clothes are also named after the oldest Norwegian city, Tønsberg. [11] The government filed a complaint against the use of the Norwegian flag in February 2008. [12] The legal complaint however failed and it is unlikely that a second attempt will be made. The Norwegian Embassy, the Norwegian Office for Foreign Affairs were informed by Mediatex – the company behind the Thor Steinar brand – in December 2007 that future collections starting and including the spring and summer 2008 collection will no longer use the national symbol of Norway. The company issued a statement in response to the issue. [13]
Until 2008, the chain operated a store named Brevik, for the town Brevik in Telemark, Norway. In February 2012, Thor Steinar opened a new store in Chemnitz also with the name Brevik. Its similarity to the last name of Anders Behring Breivik (who committed the July 2011 Norway attacks) in conjunction with his far-right politics led to public outcry and local authorities sought to have the store closed. [14] [15] The store was eventually renamed to Tønsberg in March 2012. [16]
Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the German state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden. Chemnitz is the third-largest city in the Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect area after Leipzig and Dresden. It is the fifth largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East) Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden and Halle. The city is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region, and lies in the middle of a string of cities sitting in the densely populated northern foreland of the Elster and Ore Mountains, stretching from Plauen in the southwest via Zwickau, Chemnitz and Freiberg to Dresden in the northeast.
Othala, also known as ēðel and odal, is a rune that represents the o and œ phonemes in the Elder Futhark and the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc writing systems respectively. Its name is derived from the reconstructed Proto-Germanic *ōþala- "heritage; inheritance, inherited estate". As it does not occur in Younger Futhark, it disappears from the Scandinavian record around the 8th century, however its usage continued in England into the 11th century, where it was sometimes further used in manuscripts as a shorthand for the word ēðel ("homeland"), similar to how other runes were sometimes used at the time.
The Homeland, previously known as the National Democratic Party of Germany, is a far-right neo-Nazi and ultranationalist political party in Germany.
Strafgesetzbuch, abbreviated to StGB, is the German penal code.
Fascist symbolism is the use of certain images and symbols which are designed to represent aspects of fascism. These include national symbols of historical importance, goals, and political policies. The best-known are the fasces, which was the original symbol of fascism, and the swastika of Nazism.
Lonsdale is a British sports equipment, textile and footwear brand focused on boxing and mixed martial arts established in London in 1960. Former boxer Bernard Hart started the brand as a boxing equipment company, but it eventually branched out into clothing as well. The company is named after Hugh Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale, who in 1891 set up the first organised boxing matches with gloves, following the deaths of three boxers in bare-knuckle fights. As of 2020 the Lonsdale brand is owned and operated by Sports Direct owner the Frasers Group.
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The 20th-century German Nazi Party made extensive use of graphic symbols, especially the swastika, notably in the form of the swastika flag, which became the co-national flag of Nazi Germany in 1933, and the sole national flag in 1935. A very similar flag had represented the Party beginning in 1920.
The t-rune ᛏ is named after Týr, and was identified with this god. The reconstructed Proto-Germanic name is *Tîwaz or *Teiwaz. Tiwaz rune was an ideographic symbol for a spear.
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The German Alternative was a minor neo-nazi group set up in Germany by Michael Kühnen in 1989.
The far-right in Germany slowly reorganised itself after the fall of Nazi Germany and the dissolution of the Nazi Party in 1945. Denazification was carried out in Germany from 1945 to 1949 by the Allied forces of World War II, with an attempt of eliminating Nazism from the country. However, various far-right parties emerged in the post-war period, with varying success. Most parties only lasted a few years before either dissolving or being banned, and explicitly far-right parties have never gained seats in the Bundestag post-WWII.
The German Strafgesetzbuch in section § 86a outlaws "use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations" outside the contexts of "art or science, research or teaching". The law does not name the individual symbols to be outlawed, and there is no official exhaustive list. However, the law has primarily been used to outlaw fascist, Nazi, communist, Islamic extremist and Russian militarist symbols. The law, adopted during the Cold War, most notably affected the Communist Party of Germany, which was banned as unconstitutional in 1956; the Socialist Reich Party, which was banned in 1952; and several small far-right parties.
Autonome Nationalisten are German, British, Dutch, and to a lesser degree Flemish, nationalists, who have adopted some of the far-left and antifa's organizational concepts, demonstration tactics, symbolism, and elements of clothing, including Che Guevara T-shirts and keffiyehs. Similar groups have also appeared in some central and eastern European countries, beginning with Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Romania and Greece and others.
Far-right subcultures refers to the symbolism, ideology and traits that hold relevance to various politically extreme right-wing groups and organisations. There are three kinds of subcultures within far-right movements to distinguish: subcultural parasitism, subcultural creation around ideology and subcultures that are networking with far-right movements.
Dagmar Enkelmann is a German politician of Die Linke party.
The III. Path or The Third Path is a far-right and neo-Nazi political party in Germany.
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