Hlinka Guard, Slovakia

Pro-Nazi militia before and during WWII

Last modified: 2011-03-18 by andrew weeks
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by Jens Pattke, 17 Mar 2004

• Hlinka Guard flag
• Hlinka Guard flag - variations
• Car flags of HG
• Emblem of the Hlinka Guard
• Pre WWII People's Party
• Hlinka Guard flag (incorrect)
• Slovenska Pospolitost Party

• Slovakia
• Slovakia before and during World War II (1939-'45)

Hlinka Guard flag

Hlinka Guard flag - variations

by Jarig Bakker, 14 Mar 2004

On this webpage is a scientific (diplom) work about organisation and activity of Hlinka Guard in the Podtatranska Zupa (Region under Tatras). Why I'm writing you about? There is a most interesting pictorial supplement there: The sites 97 is depicting set of HG car flags, following site the flags of HM (Hlinka Youth, Hlinkova Mladez), sites 99 - 100 is showing BW pictures of uniforms and emblemg of HG (incl. details of the badge with Tatra eagle, Hlinka double cross and three Svatopluk rods). All these pictures are scanned from press of that period (semi-official newspaper "Slovak", 1940). All these flags are of the same pattern: blue background, white roundel, red double cross couped, which was flag of the HSLS and of HG.
On the other hand - flags with cross across the round field (I mean cross which is reaching the margin of blue field) with no doubt existed. They are shown on many photographs from 1939 - 1940.
Ales Krizan, 14 Mar 2004

Images after the above mentioned pdf-file, extracted by André Coutance. All flags have an improvised look - the red Lorraine cross on the white disk differs from flag to flag, as can be seen on these two images. The emblems in the cantons also show some variation, but they are too small for my very limited giffing ability.
Jarig Bakker, 14 Mar 2004

Car flags of HG

Emblem of the Hlinka Guard

Symbols of  Hlinkova Garda/Hlinka Guard (HG) until July 7,1939
1. štandarda hlavného velitela HG/Standard of HG Commander-in-chief,
2. zástavy okresných velitelov HG/colours/flags of district commanders,
3. vlajky a zástavy/flags and banners.
Štandarda hlavného velitela HG was a rectangle 69x88 cm. (basic colour not given!).
On the right side there was state coat of arms 38 cm high, the inscription "HG" above it, and the date of Slovak state separation "14. III. 1939" below. On the left and right lower corner there was "guards cross". On the left side in the middle (of the fly) there were another guards cross in the white roundel of diameter 36 cm, above it in the upper semicircle the inscription
"Naspät cesta nemožná"1. Lower semicircle filled by a half of a crown of thorns.
In the left upper corner there was inscribed the date of HG founding  "11. VI. 1938", in the upper right one the date of this standard dedication "14. III. 1941", with the letters "HG" written below. The standard was bordered by golden stripe wide 0,5 cm and a golden cord 7,5 cm long. Three rings fixed it with the wooden naturally polished flagstaff. Metallic eagle with outstretched wings decorated the upper end of the flagstaff.

 "Zástava okresných velitelov HG" was made of blue fabric (dimensions were 110x140 cm). It was fixed by seven metallic clasps (?) to wooden naturally polished flagstaff. In its middle there is a white roundel (diameter 80 cm) charged by red double cross with bars wide 12 cm. The distance between two horizontal bars was 18 cm. In the upper left corner (on one side of the flag only) there was the inscription (white letters high 5 centimetres) on the black field, which was 9 cm wide. It gave the name of respective district. The flagstaff pike was made of thick metal, in its middle there were three hills with double cross.
The flag was bordered by black cord, 5 cm long.

"Gardistická vlajka" was a rectangle with ratio 2:3. In the middle of the blue field there was with roundel with red double cross. Its axis is going through the roundels middle in parallel with the fields wide. The flag was fixed to a rope and it was pulled up to the flagpole or a hoist.
Flagpole could be painted white, blue and red by spiral stripes. Usually was that flag 200x300 cm. Only for lesser flagstaff the flag 100x150 cm could be used.
"Gardistická zástava" was similar to the flag mentioned above, but it was fixed to the pole and its dimensioned depended to circumstances. It shouldn't be more then three times longer then its wide.

1 Naspät cesta nemožná, napred sa íst musí! (The way back is impossible, we have to go forward)  - a quotation by Ludovít Štúr, Slovakian patriot, politician, journalist and creator of modern Slovak language.
Used as a program of Slovak national life,  the first time said by Prime minister  Jozef Tiso (October, 1, 1939).
Ales Krizan,  22 Mar 2004

Pre WWII People's Party

According to 'Flagmaster', #73: 3 (1993), the [Hlinková Slovenska] Ľudová Strana ([Hlinkov's] People's Party [of Slovakia]) was the largest pre-WWII party in Slovakia, of separatist tendency. After Hlinka's death in 1938, it became pro-nazi under Josef Tiso, who founded the Hlinka Guard, later a compulsory organization under the Nazi protectorate. Its flag was blue with a red double armed cross on a white disk. The colors are the usual slovakian (pan-slav) ones and the cross is a stylization of the one in the (again current) slovakian COA.
António Martins, 8 October 1998

Hlinka Guard flag (incorrect)

The flag of the Hlinka Guard (the militia of the Slovak Peoples Party) as a red flag with a blue "double cross" in a white cirle (the arms of the cross reached to the edges of the circle).
Source: David Littlejohn - Forgotten Legions of the Third Reich.
Marcus Wendel, 20 Sep 2000

I'm not sure about the colours of the Hlinka Guard Flag. The guardists used to wear the armband with red double cross on a white circle in blue field. I personnaly saw such a armband in a  Museum in Skalica (Western Slovakia, Trnavsky kraj).  And the Guard emblem  was a golden eagle (like the german Reichsadler on  a cap and like the Wehrmachtadler on a badge on the pocket - there on a red circle of cloth) with head turned heraldicaly left (it was "awaiting the danger of East!"), with a white circle bordered blue on  its breast. In the circle was a red "double - cross" again, but the upper "balcony" was shorter then the lower one. It was the so called "symbol of Hlinka's National Revival". The eagle held in its claws a red fasces without axe ("rods of Svatopluk").

According to an old legend, the Great - Moravian King  Svatopluk (869-894) told his three sons before he resigned to his throne to be concordant. And then he showed them a bunch of rods, which nobody of them could break without dividing it to singular rods.

It is also interesting, that the Hlinka party - flag  was used as fin-flash of Slovak civil airplanes, althoug it never fully replaced the national flag.
Aleš Križan, 16 Nov 2000

I'm sorry but newer heard about red flag with blue double cross on white (from the book "Forgotten legions of the Third Reich", so this must be erroneous description of HG flag).
Ales Krizan, 14 Mar 2004

Mr. Roman Klimes, who researched the Bratislava WWII archives, never heard of the red flag with the blue cross. Phantasy?
Jens Pattke, 17 Mar 2004

On the Rothschilds homepage one reads:
"The five arrows remain an enduring symbol of the Rothschild name. But why arrows at all? The clue is in the work of Moritz Oppenheim, the "painter of the Rothschilds". A sketch in oils depicts the story told by Plutarch of Scilurus who, on his deathbed, asked his sons - five are depicted by Oppenheim - to break a bundle of darts. When they all failed, he showed them how easily the arrows could be broken individually, cautioning them that their strength as a family lay in their unity."

Seems like King Svatopluk liked reading stories about ancient Greeks...
Santiago Dotor, 16 Nov 2000

Scilurus, or Scylurus was a Scythian king c. 110 BC in the region north of the Crimea; he struck coins at Olbia, at the mouth of the Southern Bug river, and had his capital in Neapolis, on the outskirts of of Simferopol in the Crimea. The cited story is from 'Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders', perhaps not written by Plutarchus. His son Palakus was the last Scythian king.
Sources: A history of the Scythians., and a site with classical stories.
Jarig Bakker, 17 Nov 2000

Slovenska Pospolitost Party

I found a link to a Slovakian extreme-right wing party closely connected to the Romanian one. It's called  "Slovenska Pospolitost" (Slovakian Solidarity), and looks to be borrowing from the Hlinka Guard - but then again, the cross on the flags is a simple rendition of the Slovakian one.
Dan Anton Dima, 15 May 2005