If you have to ask….
Talking Points Memo reports on a souvenir awarded to Minneapolis veterans of operation “Metro Surge.” It’s a challenge coin featuring “portraits of President Donald Trump and a person who appears to be White House Border Czar Tom Homan glaring out from under a skull” with glowing eyes.
A federal employee who wishes to remain anonymous sent the images to TPM:
The White House referred questions about the Metro Surge challenge coin to DHS, which oversees ICE and many of the other key agencies involved in immigration enforcement. A DHS spokesperson provided a statement stressing that Customs and Border Protection has a process for reviewing and approving “branded merchandise,” including challenge coins.
“All external publications, videos, and branded merchandise, including coins and patches, must be reviewed and approved by the CBP Publication and Branding Review Board prior to printing, purchasing, or listing for sale,” the spokesperson said, adding, “This process ensures compliance with DHS branding guidelines and CBP policy. When CBP becomes aware of coins or patches that may not have been properly approved, we look into the matter and take appropriate action.”
The spokesperson did not immediately respond to follow up questions asking if the coin was external material, if it had been approved, or whether they would be reviewing the matter.
But, of course, they didn’t.
The challenge coin distributed at the Whipple Building seemingly revels in the violence that occurred in conjunction with Operation Metro Surge. On the flip side, the token showcases another helmeted skull with glowing eyes looming over officers in tactical gear carrying a U.S. flag amid an explosion, burning buildings, and a low flying military helicopter. The base of the coin features the text “METRO SURGE URBAN OPERATIONS.”
And, um, here’s the thing about adopting the death’s head, or Totenkopf as your emblem. Claire Barrett, an editor and military history correspondent for Military Times, reviews the history of the Totenkopf. “First introduced in the late 1730s under Frederick the Great,” it was worn by German troops on the Western Front in 1918. But unless you’ve lived your life under a rock or never visited a local gun show, it’s best known for its association with the Nazis.
Barrett writes:
“Among other uses,” writes the Anti-Defamation League, “it became the symbol of the SS-Totenkopfverbande (one of the original three branches of the SS, along with the Algemeine SS and the Waffen SS), whose purpose was to guard the concentration camps. Many original members of this organization were later transferred into and became the core of a Waffen SS division, the 3rd SS ‘Totenkopf’ Panzer Division, which engaged in a number of war crimes during World War II.”
Commonly emblazoned on German military hats and coat collars, SS commander Heinrich Himmler took the dark symbolism even further by gifting elite members of the SS with a specialized SS-Ehrenrings, translated to “death’s head ring.”
The British comedy duo Mitchell and Webb once ran a sketch where an SS officer finally notices the death’s head on their caps and asks, “Are we the baddies?” Why skulls? he asks. They make you think of death, cannibals, beheading, pirates. Okay, pirates are fun, but they’re still the baddies, aren’t they?
Barrett concludes:
Mitchell and Webb managed to point out the ridiculousness of the insignia and those who wore it. So no, you’re not honoring your Prussian heritage by sporting the Totenkopf. You are, in fact, a baddie. A very offensive one.
And if you’re handing out souvenirs of an American government operation that terrorized the civilian population of a major U.S. city, and in which your secret police gunned down two of its citizens? And your souvenir features a Totenkopf? You might be a baddie.
You don’t need to be Jeff Foxworthy to figure that out.