The forest swastika was a patch of larch trees covering 0.36 ha area of pine forest near Zernikow, Uckermark district, Brandenburg, in northeastern Germany, arranged with their light colors to look like a swastika. Reports say the larches were planted in 1938. It is unclear how the trees came to be planted and arranged in such a fashion, but it seems they were planted in commemoration of Adolf Hitler's birthday, either by local Hitler Youth members or by a warden.

A forestry student discovered a 60-meter-wide swastika made of larch trees near Zernikow, in the northeastern state of Brandenburg, when he looked at aerial photographs in 1992. The symbol, comprised of around 100 larch trees in a pine forest, is thought to have been planted in the late 1930s under the Nazi regime, but local officials say there are no surviving documents that clearly identify who ordered the planting.

It appeared each autumn, when a cluster of larch trees turned yellow against a backdrop of evergreen pines near Zernikow, a rural village 60 miles north of Berlin. A forest warden is believed to have planted the trees in 1938. German media has speculated he did so either because of his enthusiasm for Adolf Hitler or because he was commanded to do so.

One infamous example of arboreal Nazi devotion surfaced in Brandenburg, where a cluster of larches in a pine forest near Zernikow formed a giant swastika visible only from above when the needles turned yellow each fall. The planting dates to the late 1930s, historians believe, but archival records have not confirmed whether it was initiated by local foresters, Hitler Youth, or another Nazi organization.

Zernikow – In 1938, a forester planted a few larches into this piece of forest among the pines. However, the legacy of this man, who was enthusiastic about Hitler, only becomes visible in autumn. While the pine needles remain green, the larch needles turn brown-yellow and, seen from above, form a 60 by 60 meter swastika. According to a spokesman for the Brandenburg Ministry of Agriculture, some trees had already been felled by the forestry office in 1995 to blur this Nazi relic, but the action was unsuccessful.

The local forester, Klaus Göricke, set out to uncover the origin of the troubling larch formation, and he found out that the trees had been there for a long time. By measuring the trees, he came to the conclusion they had been planted in the late 1930s. That means that for decades, during every spring and autumn, a massive swastika took shape in the Kutzerower Heath — surviving the Russian occupation, Communist rule in East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall without ever attracting notice. As Jens-Uwe Schade already explained in 2000, this had become "a fad among National Socialist foresters" during the Nazi period.

The so‑called "Hakenkreuzwald" of Zernikow (Oberhavel) is to be felled. The swastika consists of larches planted in 1938, whose yellow needles in autumn form a clearly visible swastika from the air in the green coniferous forest. The federally owned BVVG, which owns the forest, has now approved the felling operation, the Brandenburg Ministry of Agriculture confirmed.

German forestry workers felled 25 larch trees Monday in a forest near the village of Zernikow, 60 miles north of Berlin, to obliterate the last visible traces of a swastika formed by trees planted in the 1930s. The swastika, measuring about 200 feet across, had been created by planting lighter-colored larches among darker pines so that the Nazi emblem would appear when the larches changed color in autumn. The precise reason for the planting is unknown, but it dates to the period when the area was under Nazi administration.

Even before dawn, chainsaws were roaring yesterday in the so‑called "Hakenkreuz-Forst" near Zernikow in the Uckermark. After three hours the spook was already over: the huge Nazi symbol, laid out in 1938 with larches in a pine forest, literally collapsed in on itself. Many stories and legends surround the 60 by 60 meter square with the swastika. The forest at Zernikow was still a bare area in 1938. In addition to the pines, quickly growing larches were planted in six rows, each six meters wide.

A local forester determined that the trees had been standing there for a very long time. According to his measurements, they had already been planted at the end of the 1930s. For decades, every spring and autumn, a huge swastika in the Kutzerower Heide had shone in color, surviving the Russian occupiers, the GDR and the fall of the Wall. In 1995, forestry workers tackled the larch swastika with chainsaws and felled 40 of the trees, but later it was found that the symbol was still clearly recognizable.

Over 20 years ago, a landscaper in eastern Germany discovered a formation of trees in a forest in the shape of a swastika. The local forester, Klaus Göricke, set out to uncover the origin of the troubling larch formation, and he found out that the trees had been there for a long time. By measuring the trees, he came to the conclusion they had been planted in the late 1930s. It didn't take long for rumors to spread about how the swastika got there in the first place, including that a local Nazi leader ordered the trees planted on the occasion of Hitler's birthday or that they were planted as a sign of loyalty to the Nazi Party.

It was not until the 1990s that aerial photographs revealed a swastika shape in a Brandenburg forest – formed by larch trees planted among pines, their golden autumn leaves standing out against the dark green. This swastika of trees was not an isolated case in Germany. Again and again, large-scale plantings in the shape of swastikas had to be removed from German forests. During the Nazi period, ‘Hitler oaks’ were planted across the country, and the forest became a site of National Socialist symbolism.

Approximately 140 larch trees in the middle of forest of green pine trees had turned brown in the autumn, forming a large swastika. The forest swastika in Brandenburg, Germany most likely had been around since the 1930s, based on estimates of the age of the trees. One more version claims the planting occurred in honor of Hitler’s birthday when a local Nazi leader ordered it done; alternatively, a newspaper, the Berliner Zeitung, wrote that the Reich Labor Service constructed a road in a nearby village and the trees were planted in gratitude for this road.

The article refers to the "Hakenkreuzwald" near Zernikow in the Uckermark: there, foresters planted 100 to 140 larches in 1938 in the shape of a swastika. The legacy of the "Thousand-Year Reich" was only discovered in 1992, when the forests were flown over as part of a forest inventory. (Note: the piece itself is framed as an April Fools' joke, but it treats the historical Zernikow swastika forest as a real reference point.)

According to the report, the swastika shape in the larch stand near Zernikow was discovered on aerial photographs only in 1992, although the trees themselves dated back to the Nazi era. The federal government, as owner of the land via the BVVG, eventually ordered felling operations in the 1990s and 2000 to eliminate the clearly recognizable swastika symbol formed by the differently colored larches within the pine forest.

The Zernikow forest swastika is widely described in secondary literature as a Nazi-era planting of larch trees within a pine forest in Brandenburg, forming a swastika visible from the air. However, historians and local authorities generally note a lack of surviving primary documentation from Nazi forestry offices that would definitively attribute the design to an official "forestry department" order, leaving some uncertainty about whether it was an institutional project or an initiative of individual wardens or local Nazi organizations.

According to available information, both the larches and the surrounding pine forest were planted in 1938. Around 100 to 140 larches are said to have been arranged in the form of a swastika, forming a 60 by 60 meter symbol clearly visible from the air in autumn due to the color contrast between larches and pines. Various myths exist about the origin; one version attributes the idea to the then forest owner or his forester, but the exact authorship is not documented.

The forest swastika as it was known was a patch of larch trees found near Zernikow in Brandenburg; it had been arranged amongst other trees to look like quite clearly a swastika. There were reports that the trees were planted in 1938 and it is quite clear that someone had planted them with the intention of celebrating Nazism or Hitler; they may have been planted in commemoration of Hitler's birthday by a member of the party or Hitler Youth members.