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And We Thought the Problem Solved T-Shirt Was Bad

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Check this out. Amy from Radioactive Quills shows us that the misogynist “Problem Solved” T-shirt has competition for the title of the worst thing out there:

In case you missed it, here’s another good reason to not shop at Wal-Mart.

As an alert consumer realizes, this symbol was used, from 1936 onwards, as the insignia worn by all members of the SS concentration camp service. In 1941 it was adopted by the 3rd SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf.

Didn’t anyone in the Wal-Mart corporation take a world history class in high school?!

Jesus H. If you want a shirt with a skull on it, use one of the other hundreds of thousands of skull designs. Don’t use the Totenkopf.

21 thoughts on And We Thought the Problem Solved T-Shirt Was Bad

  2. I’m wondering about the “Since 1978.” My initial thought was that it might actually be a Death in June t-shirt. Death in June use the Totenkopf as part of their symbology and formed around that time — only the date would be about three years too early.

    (As an aside, Death in June themselves have run afoul of their use of the symbol on a number of occasions. Their explanation is that they do not endorse the concentration camps at all and that the symbol far predates that use thereof, having been known to have been used by the Prussian Army under Frederick the Great. *big shrug* I’m not sure that I’d buy that Wal-Mart was attempting to claim an endorsement of Frederick the Great since 1978.)

  3. Since I wasn’t familiar myself with the symbology of various Nazi SS units, I went digging, and turned up this article on Wikipedia about the division.

    Sadly, the article feels very incomplete to me – does anybody else know more about this bunch?

  5. My initial thought was that it might actually be a Death in June t-shirt.

    I dunno, their skull is more smiling, and is usually in a circle with a little number six in the corner.

    It might be a cheap, non-copyright-violating ripoff-y version of a Death in June t-shirt. I’ve seen them do similar things with common symbols in their faux-edgy junior fashion section, or even with popular movie t-shirts.

    It could also be an attempt at something pirate-y after the Johnny Depp movie this summer.

    Something deep down inside makes me hope this is a stupid, oblivious use of an uncopyrighted image rather than something nefarious.

  6. Something deep down inside makes me hope this is a stupid, oblivious use of an uncopyrighted image rather than something nefarious.

    I’m going to assume oblivious. The couple of articles I’ve seen on this all make a big deal about “Haven’t these people taken a history class?!”, but frankly, we didn’t cover Nazi symbology in my history classes. Learned about the SS and the KZs and so on, but not about specific emblems used by particular brigades. I guess I’m just stupid. *shrugs*

    Granted, a graphic designer should be more careful. If you’re going to use an image, you’ve gotta know where it’s coming from.

  7. Golly-gee, the big evil Mall-Wart isn’t trying to get your little brownshirts to secretly wear Nazi symbology, and I had no idea what the heck a Totenkopf was until a few weeks ago either, so I’m having a tough time blaming them for lack of a historical insight.

    I have a feeling that this shirt isn’t so much a evil Aryan plot as some lowest bidder supplier’s attempt to appeal to the pirate craze with the Hot Topic crowd. I suppose stuff like this goes along with their pre-distressed 6 pocket BDU knockoffs.

    The real story here is how much more effective Mall-Wart’s PR firm has been at promptly responding to the early bloggers that covered this topic as compared to how ineffective they have actually been on pulling the items from every store. It seems that some bloggers got letters right away, but the shirts were available in the stores for weeks afterward.

    Tino covered this story, and a related one pretty well almost four weeks ago.

  8. Isn’t this the shirt that Walmart has taken off its shelves because they “didn’t know” the skull was a Nazi insignia? I seem to remember reading about this about a month or so ago. Not that ignorance is an excuse. At the time I thought it was pretty funny that this is a company that covers “dirty” magazines like Maxim and Cosmo with brown paper and only sells radio edits of CDs with naughty lyrics yet they’re dumb enough to sell Nazi memorabilia. A little bit of a disconnect there.

  9. We didn’t learn Nazi symbolism outside of the swastika in school, but I did learn about the Totenkopf through my own studies. I agree with the above poster than anyone whose profession is dealing with graphic images and such ought to know something about their origins. The Totenkopf is rather notorious.

  10. The fact that the shirt is actually brown makes me wonder if this isn’t at least a little bit deliberate.

    Even if not, it’s pretty damn stupid.

  11. What is the ‘since 1978’ reference anyone have any ideas? I looked up ‘Death in June’ and their skull is similar, but not the same. What is the 1978 reference to? Wikpedia has this reference to the Totenkopf when I looked up history of the Waffen SS, a link came to a page that has the exact ‘death’s head’ image as on the t-shirt and I quote,

    “SS Division Totenkopf (“Death’s Head”) is also known as 3. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Totenkopf and 3. SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf. It was one of the 38 divisions fielded by the Waffen-SS during World War II. Prior to achieving division status, the formation was known as Kampfgruppe Eicke. The division’s military record is infamous due to numerous war crimes and the fact that most of the initial enlisted men were SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS concentration camp guards).

    Someone had to have dug up some old info on the nazis to get the image no?

  12. Also, that Wal-Mart is based in Arkansas, a hot-bed of hate group activity, my mind can’t resist some rather unsavory associations here.

  13. kate Says:

    What is the ’since 1978′ reference anyone have any ideas?

    Don’t you know?!?!?!?!? 1978 was when they wrote The Turner Diaries!!!omg11!! It also, by substitution of letters for the numbers comes out as ‘A.I.G.H.’ — Adolf Is Great Hitler!

    No, I’m kidding.

    It seems that everyone has been far too busy bashing Wal*Mart to actually note the name of the manufacture of the tee-shirt. I’m willing to bet that’s when the company that actually created the shirt was founded. Of course, with Mall-Wart currently taking all the heat, I’m sure whoever makes the dang thing is in no mood to stand up and identify themselves as responsable for the gaff.

  14. I’m going to assume oblivious. The couple of articles I’ve seen on this all make a big deal about “Haven’t these people taken a history class?!”, but frankly, we didn’t cover Nazi symbology in my history classes.

    I’ve done some informal research myself (more on the government than the death camps) and I don’t remember coming across this.

    Particularly since it was created by an outside vendor, I’m suspecting cluelessness on the part of Wal-Mart. Though I now have to admit being somewhat suspicious of the motives of the vendor …

  15. when i first saw this shirt and the “since 1978” caption, i immediately thought that this was an anti-choice shirt. like from the camp of “teh abortion mill is a baybee holocaust” wing-nutty line of thinking. then i remembered that roe v wade was passed in 1973.

  19. Standard Mischief’s explanation sounds plausible enough to me. At some point in the food chain, somebody might have known what the symbol meant. As it moved up, I’m sure that most people assumed it was associated with some biker gang or Otto the Bus Driver or what not. The various SS units had so many different symbols that you have to be an… er, enthusiast to be familiar with them all.

  20. It’s not an outside vendor. All of the clothes sold at Wal-Mart are house brands.

    True. This shirt was branded “No Boundaries” which is their in-house brand. It’s likely that the brand was created in 1978, though as a subsidiary it appears there is no website. Wal*mart was It was founded in 1962 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972.

    It’s the logo of the Totenkopf record label, formed in 1978:

    I’ve read that rumor on teh inter-tubes too, but Totenkopf Records doesn’t seem to have a website either. So I can’t either conform or deny. I’ve only found one album cover online, and it didn’t show the record label logo.

  21. Consumerist.com has been covering this for a while now. I think the link which gives the explanation for the shirt’s origin is here

    The designer says he found the skull in a “European trend book.”

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