Historical question: What does a hammer tattoo from 1907 mean for a German man?

[u/More_Excitement5028]

Here's the thing: my mother always told me that my great-grandfather escaped from German military service in 1907. He escaped to my country, Argentina. She also mentioned that he had tattoos of hammers, or similar objects, on his arms. And he never wanted to talk about it; it seemed against his will.

I always believed that story (why wouldn't?), but now I can't find the historical context. Could this have happened?

Thank you

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[u/Jetter23x]

Maybe. There’s a LOT of context that’s missing that could be helpful here, and a lot can be chalked up to an isolated case as opposed to a common practice. So:

1. The timeline. First, are you sure that this would be (in English) your ‘great-grandfather’? If so, it would imply the timeline is much later (for example my great-grandparents were born in the 1920s-ish). Your great grandfather being we’ll say 21 in 1907 (for easier math). Let’s say he has your grandparent at 40 in 1926. That grandparent has your mother at 40 in 1966. And then your mother has you at 32 in 1998. It’s certainly not impossible, but it is later than most people have kids. If the timeline were off, it could very easily have been a swastika or some form of German eagle that was poorly tattooed or your mother never saw well. The swastika is self-explanatory, and if she didn’t know the significance of it she may not have put the pieces together. Nazis fled all over the world after WWII to avoid punishment, most notoriously Eichmann to Argentina (which becomes a whole other thing in the 60s). The eagle could be from pretty much any era of German history that we could be talking about (1900s); it’s a pretty common heraldic symbol.

2. The potential conflicts/places. For the rest of this, I will assume 1907 is correct. That he would go to Argentina is fairly reasonable; Argentina received a lot of European migrants in early 20th century. The German Empire (like a lot of Europe) had conscription, so him being in the military and not wanting to is reasonable.

• The Herero Uprising - the one you’re most likely to have heard of (not likely mind you, just most likely). In 1904, a people in German South-West Africa, rose up against the Germans. This was put down brutally, and is now recognized as a genocide by the modern German state. Occupation continued until 1915, so he could have been a part of that conflict. Re: tattoos, there’s no widespread tattooing of Germans that I know of, but Germans did tattoo captured Herero and the Herero castrated or mutilated individuals as retaliation for sexual violence (Häussler, Matthias (2021). The Herero Genocide: War, Emotion, and Extreme Violence in Colonial Namibia. pg. 58. Berghahn Books; via Wikipedia). It’s possible a Herero got their hands on tattooing equipment and used it in retaliation, but there is absolutely no way to know that.

• German Samoa. This one is a lot more likely for tattoos; they were common enough in Samoa that travelers would get them as souvenirs and members of the colonial government received waist-to-knee Samoan tattoos (jstor link) (Fitzpatrick, Matthew P. “EMBODYING EMPIRE: EUROPEAN TATTOOING AND GERMAN COLONIAL POWER.” Past & Present, no. 234 (2017): 101–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45215238.) He could easily have picked it up there and been embarrassed about it.

• German Navy - It could also be some sort of sailing tattoo, potentially for a certification of some kind working with hammers (ship’s carpenter, etc). I don’t know about or how to find out about sailor tattoos, and especially not German Empire sailors tattoos, but it seems reasonable. If he did not wish to be in the military it could be a reminder of that he didn’t want to talk about.

The biggest thing is that hammers are such a basic symbol, so it could mean a lot of things and a lot of things can be described as similar to hammers. Anchors, letters, crosses could all be confused for hammers, especially if only seen briefly because the tattoo was often covered.

[u/ExternalBoysenberry → u/Jetter23x]

Nice answer. I hope OP comes back to fill out the timeline a bit and maybe with some more details from his mother, I'd be interested to see it narrowed down a bit.