The esoteric insignia of the Schutzstaffel or SS runes (German: SS-Runen) were used from the 1920s to 1945 on Schutzstaffel (SS) flags, uniforms and other items as symbols of various aspects of Nazi ideology and Germanic mysticism.
They also represented virtues seen as desirable in SS members, and were based on völkisch mystic Guido von List's pseudo-runic Armanen runes, which he loosely based on the historical runic alphabets.
[1] It was adapted into the emblem of the SS in 1933 by Walter Heck, an SS-Sturmhauptführer who worked as a graphic designer for Ferdinand Hoffstatter, a producer of emblems and insignia in Bonn.
[2] Heck's device consisted of two sig runes drawn side by side like lightning bolts, and was soon adopted by all branches of the SS – though Heck himself received only a token payment of 2.5 Reichsmarks for his work.
[2] The symbol became so ubiquitous that it was frequently typeset using runes rather than letters; during the Nazi period, an extra key was added to German typewriters to enable them to type the double-sig logo with a single keystroke[4] As well as List's Armanen runes, the SS used a number of other esoteric symbols.