Austria, the Vaterländische Front, & the Kruckenkreuz

[+Suomut+]

Would anyone on this site happen to know why the Kruckenkreuz (i.e., the 'cross-potent' or the 'Jerusalem Cross') was in times gone by so prominent in Austria in general and the Vaterländische Front in particular? As I recall, I once saw a painting of the emperor Franz Josef wearing a Kruckenkreuz and I'd like to know why. Does anyone out there know? Thanks for the help!

[Nordgau]

The Kruckenkreuz or Krückenkreuz, a reduction form of the Jerusalem cross, was prominent among some völkisch thinkers of pre-WW1 Austria and Germany (Guido von List; Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels), because it was seen as a unification of a left-turning and a right-turning swastika.

The Jerusalem cross was in frormer times spreaded among several European dynasties, also among the German-Roman emperors; the Habsburg dynasty was only the dynasty where it remained for the longest time.

I don't know the exact reason why the Vaterländische Front had chosen the Kruckenkreuz as symbol, but I assume that the movement of the conservative, authoritarian Ständestaat chose it rather because of the traditional meaning of the Jerusalem cross as symbol of old European Christianity, and hardly because of any völkisch meaning.
That this anti-Nazi movement chose such a striking symbol as anti-symbol to the National Socialist swastika also shows that they opponents of Hitler couldn't evaid the fascinating of NS and general fascist symbolism (a sililar process happaned in the beginning 30s at the SPD when this party invented its "symbol" of the three arrows and "Freiheit!" as "salute"). They even put the Kruckenkreuz in the middle of the Austrian flag, similar to the swastika in the German flag.

[Nordgau]

Aaah... it's crutch-cross in English

Kruckenkreuz: http://www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.k/k884315.htm

Austrofaschismus/Vaterländische Front/Ständestaat: http://www.nationalsozialismus.at/Th...aterlfront.htm

[+Suomut+]

Aaah... it's crutch-cross in English

Thank you for the replies, input, & information, as usual, Thorburnulf.

[Nordgau]

Here's an English site of the "American Falangist Party" about "the Fascist President of Austria" Engelbert Dollfuß: www.falange.org/dollfuss.htm

I had of Dollfuß and his crutch-cross state always somehow the impression of a ridiculous Punch and Judy fascism. The high "standard" of the Third Reich can hardly be reached by wannabe mini-fascists, and that's why the Austro-fascism which, despite of its opposition to National Socialism, copies quite apparently Hitlerian superficialities has such a clownesk touch in its "look".