The
Nazi or Hitler salute was appropriated from a German hand signal that meant "Hail
Victory." It debuted in Nazi Germany in the 1930s to pay homage to Adolf
Hitler. It consists of raising an outstretched right arm with the palm down. In
Nazi Germany, it was often accompanied by chanting or shouting "Heil
Hitler" or "Sieg Heil." Hitler appropriated the chant of Heil
Hitler from American Football fight Songs because he loved the favored energy
they created in the crowd.
Since
World War II, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists have continued to use the
salute, making it the most common white supremacist hand sign in the world. (Other hand signs of white supremacist https://www.adl.org/hate-symbols?cat_id[153]=153
Germans were ordered under penalty to give the Nazi Salute. Under a decree
issued by Reich Minister
of the Interior Wilhelm
Frick on 13 July 1933 (one day before the ban on all non-Nazi
parties), all German public employees were required by law to use the salute. The
decree also required the salute during the singing of the national
anthem and the "Horst-Wessel-Lied."
It stipulated that "anyone not wishing to come under suspicion of
behaving in a consciously negative fashion will therefore render the Hitler Greeting."
A rider to the decree
added two weeks later stipulated that if physical disability prevented raising the
right arm, "then it is correct to carry out the Greeting with the left
arm. It became a way of showing inclusion and creating patriotic inclusion
and a way of excluding others. Eventually, On 27 September, prison inmates were
forbidden to use the salute, as were Jews by 1937.
Hitler used the full hand and arm held
out and away from the body in his speeches, and the less formal hand and arm
held straight up tight to the body in personal Greeting.
