SUPPORTERS and social media users reacted in fury at the weekend after a Rangers flag featuring a Nazi SS symbol emerged online, prompting an investigation.
Many fans called for the flag to be banned. The incident occurred as the club welcomed 150 serving members of the Army, RAF and Royal Navy to the stadium as part of its Armed Forces Day.
The backlash prompted Rangers to condemn the flag, and on Sunday 1, the club confirmed they had launched an investigation – but what does the flag mean?
A photograph shared on Twitter/X showed a blue flag with white writing and the phrase: "Rangers Active Unit. 936. The Firm.”
In the middle of the flag is the hate symbol, the Totenkopf - a German word for skull.
In the early 1930’s, the symbol was used by Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard unit and during the war, SS soldiers, particularly those who guarded concentration camps and committed a number of atrocities, some of the worst during the war.
It also became the symbol of the 3rd SS "Totenkopf" Panzer Division, responsible for several war crimes.
This included the 1940 Le Paradis Massacre, where 97 British soldiers from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were murdered after they surrendered.
After World War 2, neo-Nazis and other white supremacists adopted the hate symbol due to its importance to the SS.
The most recent backlash follows the sighting of a flag in April at the Scottish Cup Glasgow derby at Hampden Park. A different flag bearing a similar logo, “936”, and a quote from Benito Mussolini, “expand or perish”.
This time, the club has responded: “Clearly, this flag is absolutely unacceptable, and the club condemns the displaying of it within our stadium in the strongest possible terms.
"The club can confirm an investigation is now underway."
