The pine forest swastika was a massive and mysterious pattern drawn by carefully planted larch trees in a pine forest near Zernikow, Uckermark district, Brandenburg, in north-eastern Germany. The image, covering 3,600 square metres and consisting of around 100 trees, remains a mystery to this very day.
If the imagery wasn’t so depressing it would look pretty cool. I wonder why this sort of long-term artistry hasn’t been utilised in more forested regions? Arborsculpture is along the same lines, but this is on a different scale.
As for the reasoning behind the swastika and who carried out the creative gardening, no one is too sure. One theory is that a zealous forester convinced local Hitler Youth to plant the symbol to commemorate Hitler’s birthday, but that’s not much more than hearsay.
The swastika is only noticeable for a few weeks a year when the leaves change colour and there aren’t that many light aircraft in the region, so the pattern actually went unnoticed until after the fall of Hitler’s regime. In 1992, the reunified German government ordered aerial surveys of all state-owned land. The photographs were examined by forestry students who didn’t take too long to pick out the stark and brutal reminder of the bad old days.
The Brandenburg state authorities weren’t particularly keen on keeping the swastika on their land. Not only did it give a pretty bad vibe to their region, but they were concerned that the place might become a Mecca for Hitler’s remaining supporters.
In 1995 the authorities removed almost half of the trees, but aerial shots in 2000 showed that the swastika was still nice and visible. So, in December 2000, another 25 of the larch trees were felled pretty much obscuring the image for good.
So the moral of the story is as follows: if you plant trees in a pattern, no one will notice for ages.
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