Red triangle (badge)
The red triangle, also known as the red wedge, was a required accessory worn by left-wing dissidents incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps during World War Two. A red triangle patch pointing upwards designated prisoners within the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht, including prisoners of war, spies, and military deserters. An inverted red triangle was worn by political prisoners, including resistance fighters. The political ideologies designated by the red triangle included communists, liberals, anarchists, Social Democrats, and Freemasons. After the war, the inverted red triangle symbol was reclaimed by anti-fascists in Europe, similar to the way that the pink triangle used to mark gay prisoners became a symbol of LGBTQ pride. The reclaimed red triangle symbol has been used as the logo for the Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists in Germany and numerous other post-war remembrances and memorial groups. It has also been worn as a lapel pin by left-wing politicians from Belgium, France, and Spain.
Other left-wing, anti-fascist, and resistance groups have used red triangle or red wedge symbols that reference images and symbols from before WWII.
One of these is Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, a 1919 propaganda poster by El Lissitzky.
An earlier image recalled by some labour movements is an equilateral triangle representing eight-hours of work, eight-hours of leisure, and eight hours of sleep in the 24-hours of a day.
In 2020, Donald Trump's presidential re-election campaign attracted controversy by using the symbol in social media advertisements attacking his own far-left opponents, whom he described as "Antifa".
Before Nazi Germany
Eight-hour workday
The red triangle has been a left-wing political symbol since the 19th century.On Labor Day in 1890 in France workers wore a red triangle as a symbol of the eight-hour working day they were fighting for, with the three points representing 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and 8 hours of leisure.
It is still used with this meaning in some parts of Europe, in conjunction with Labour Day celebrations on 8 May.
In July 1889 in Paris, at the meeting of the Second International, the workers' association bringing together European socialist and workers' parties, decided that the following year, workers would demonstrate on May 1 to demand the eight-hour day. The red leather triangle was adopted on 1 May 1890 in Paris during the workers' struggles so that the demonstrator could distinguish himself from the. The badge symbolizes workers' demand for a maximum eight-hour work day, which reserved 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of leisure. The inscription "1 May, 8 hours of work" was sewn onto the triangle for the demonstration.
Following the immense success of the mobilization of the 1 May 1890 – in Belgium, 150,000 workers went on strike – it was decided shortly afterward to make this date a worldwide day of action, this is the creation of the International Workers' Day. The eight-hour day was obtained in 1919 in France and in 1921 in Belgium.
El Lissitzky's Red Wedge
Similar symbols were being used in far-left politics in early 20th century Russia. A red triangle or "red wedge" features on some early communist posters. A red wedge appeared in a 1919 soviet propaganda poster by constructivist artist El Lissitzky titled "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge", referring to the anti-communist White movement, who were defeated by the Red Army during the Russian Civil War.The term "whites" referred to the White movement, a conservative, right-wing, monarchist movement whose factional colour was white.
The title, allegedly recommended by Ilya Ehrenburg, is possibly a response to the pogrom slogan "Beat the Jews!".
The full slogan was , and it was predominantly used by right wing monarchists and their militant Black Hundreds.
Numerous modern left-wing groups and publications have used symbols that reference the red wedge, or the reclamation or the red triangle badge that the Nazis used to mark their political opponents, or both.
The black flag used by modern anti-fascists also refers back to the era of the Russian Revolution.
The El Lissitzky poster was the namesake of the 1980s British left-wing musical collective Red Wedge, they opposed British conservatives but did not describe themselves as communist.
File: Klinom Krasnym Bej Belych.JPG |thumb|center|480px| El Lissitzky's 1919 anti-White movement poster, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge.
Opponents of the Nazi Party
Background to Nazi persecution of left-wing opponents
The colour of the symbol comes from the party colours of the Communist Party of Germany, one of the first groups to be detained in the Nazi concentration camps.Nazi crackdowns on their left wing political enemies started very early. As depicted in the famous poem, First They Came by Martin Niemöller, a German priest. It begins, "When the Nazis came for the communists, I kept quiet; I wasn't a communist".
The most comon English version begimns, "First they came for the Communists".
In a 2024 article about the origins of the red triangle symbol, Germany's public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported, "At first, the majority of political inmates were German Social Democrats or Communists and the red of the triangle referred to their party colors.. most were non-Germans from across the political spectrum who had opposed National Socialism or Nazi Germany's occupation of their countries".
The red triangle badge in Nazi concentration camps
| Red triangle prisoner categories |
| communists |
| social democrats |
| liberals |
| members of the Resistance |
| anarchists |
| trade unionists |
| Freemasons |
| Strasserists |
A red inverted triangle was worn by political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.
The red triangle was only used for Jewish prisoners in unusual circumstances, such as when the Nazi authorities in the prison were unaware that the prisoner was Jewish.
German communists were among the first to be imprisoned in concentration camps. Their ties to the USSR concerned Hitler, and the Nazi Party was intractably opposed to communism. Rumors of communist violence were spread by the Nazis to justify the Enabling Act of 1933, which gave Hitler his first dictatorial powers. Hermann Göring testified at Nuremberg that Nazi willingness to repress German Communists prompted Hindenburg and the old elite to cooperate with them. Hitler and the Nazis also despised German leftists because of their resistance to Nazi racism. Hitler referred to Marxism and "Bolshevism" as means for "the international Jew" to undermine "racial purity", stir up class tension and mobilise trade unions against the government and business. When the Nazis occupied a territory, communists, socialists and anarchists were usually among the first to be repressed; this included summary executions. An example is Hitler's Commissar Order, in which he demanded the summary execution of all Soviet troops who were political commissars who offered resistance or were captured in battle.
Many red triangle wearers were interned at Dachau concentration camp.
The triangle and star system was used at the Dachau concentration camp from 1938 to 1942.
According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, Poland, 95% of prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp were accused of political crimes.
Later this expanded and many political detainees were German and foreign civilian activists from across the political spectrum who opposed the Nazi regime, captured resistances fighters and, sometimes, their families. German political prisoners were a substantial proportion of the first inmates at Dachau. The political People's Court was notorious for the number of its death sentences.
After WWII
Since the end of World War II the red triangle has been used as an anti-fascist symbol.The pink triangle and red triangle were both reclaimed after the war as symbols of pride and remembrance.
Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists
The Association of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime – Federation of Antifascists is a German political confederation founded in 1947 and based in Berlin. The VVN-BdA, formerly the VVN, emerged from victims' associations in Germany founded by political opponents to Nazism after the Second World War and the end of the Nazi rule in Germany.With the end of World War II, self-help groups of former resistance fighters were founded in "anti-fascist committees", known as "Antifas", involving working class militants, in particular but not only Communists which were banned immediately by the military administrations of each of the British and American occupation zones for being far politically left.
By June 26, 1945, an "association of political prisoners and persecutees of the Nazi system" had been founded in Stuttgart, and in the following weeks and months, there were regional groups of ex-political prisoners and other persecuted individuals formed with the permission of the allied forces, in each of the four occupation zones.
The group are critical of far-right politicians in Germany and abroad.
In 2025, the group claimed that, "The weakening of universities has long been a declared goal of the US right".
Use in East Germany (Deutsche Demokratische Republik)
From 1975 onwards, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik released a medal for the "Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters" of the GDR that included a red triangle.The Committee of Antifascist Resistance Fighters was formed in 1953. Practically speaking, it functioned as the East German counterpart of the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime. The KdAW enjoyed a close relationship with the Socialist Unity Party, although it was not a member of the National Front. The organisation played an important role in the commemoration of German resistance to Nazism and The Holocaust in East Germany. East Germany utilised such commemorative functions to emphasise the anti-fascist orientation of the state.
Membership in the KdAW served as a means of accessing benefits. For instance, membership made one eligible to receive the Medal for Fighters Against Fascism.
It also contained a number of working groups, which brought people with similar backgrounds together. The most prominent of these were groups for survivors of various concentration camps and prisons; for example one existed for former prisoners of Brandenburg-Görden Prison. Another working group was formed for veterans of the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War.