Susanna Freymark
Some residents have raised concerns about a sporting club’s logo that is based on an old hunting symbol.
The sign out the front of the Woodburn Amateur Boxing Club has a logo that has links to various 15th Century German peasant revolts.
It was later adopted by the Nazi Party and some of its military divisions.
The sign has a shield with a wolf and a hooked symbol.
The hooked symbol is the one of concern.
Boxing club president Gavin Begbie said the club has had the logo for decades.
It features on the Boxing NSW website and on the new sign at the club, next to the post office.
“I do not recall how the logo decision was made, only that the previous secretary Col Peake (now deceased) said it was chosen to fit in with the Woodburn Wolves football club sporting motif. The wolf being seen as a unifying symbol of all of Woodburn sports,” Mr Begbie said.
“The hooked symbol is representative of woodsmen and good hunters.
“These symbols are quite old and obliviously designed without any ideological references.
“The Woodburn Amateur Club logo (the coat of arms of Burgwedel, a town in Lower Saxony) has been with us for decades.”
IndyNR.com sent the club’s logo to the Sydney Jewish Museum. Its head of education, Sandy Hollis said the Nazi connection was to the lower part of the symbol.
“The symbol (the bottom horizontal rune), is attributed to a device for hunting wolves, but on the other hand, this symbol can also be found in runic script,” he said.
In the Nazi Party organisational manual, the hooked symbol can be found under the name Wolfsangel.
“In Germany today, display of the symbol is punishable in connection with the neo-Nazi organisation Junge Front. This symbol is not yet punishable in Australia.”
NSW announced new laws around the public display of Nazi symbols in August.
The new laws make it a criminal offence to knowingly display a Nazi symbol in public without a reasonable excuse.
The new offence in the Crimes Act 1900 will carry a maximum penalty of 12 months jail or an $11,000 fine or both for an individual or a fine of $55,000 for a corporation.
To be clear, the boxing club logo is not listed as a banned image.
Woodburn Boxing Club has removed the logo from any online content and it has been covered up on the sign on the club grounds.
