The claim
The National Socialist Schutzstaffel was founded in 1933 in the Reich Concordat between the German Reich and the Vatican as the “Sedes Sacrorum Schutz Staffel” or “Knights of Sedes Sacrorum”. NATO is the successor to the Schutzstaffel. The NATO headquarters in Brussels depicts the four S's in the form of Sig runes.
Our conclusion
The Schutzstaffel was founded earlier; neither the SS nor an order of knights is mentioned in the Reich Concordat. The NATO headquarters was modeled on interlocked fingers. NATO is not a successor organization to the Schutzstaffel.
Some conspiracy stories are so absurd that they make you want to laugh out loud. However, we at Mimikama like to ask ourselves: How do you come up with such ideas? Mostly after we had a good laugh! Such a gift was recently brought to us by a friendly organization with the request: “We would be very happy about a thorough review of the picture!” How could we say no?

The source of this idiosyncratic image composition is quickly discovered: a Dutch conspiracy website . The photo in the background is not a photo at all, but a design for the new NATO building in Brussels from 2008. The historical photo on the right shows a soldier with the insignia of the National Socialist Schutzstaffel . The star at the top left is a mirrored and recolored version of the compass rose in the NATO flag . And what is behind the lettering Knights of the Sedes Sacrorum – Sedes Sacrorum Schutz Staffel ? A conspiracy narrative.
Knight of the Holy See
If you search for these terms, you will come across various conspiracy sites with very idiosyncratic knowledge of Latin and a dubious understanding of history. “Sedes Sacrorum” is said to mean Holy See or seat of the saint and refers to the Pope in Rome. However, the correct Latin name for both the physical piece of furniture and the Vatican as a sovereign subject of international law is Sancta Sedes .

The only serious text source in which the words “sedes sacrorum” appear in this string is a theological-scientific work by Ernst Rosenmüller from 1836. It is a treatise on the “minor prophets” from the Tanach. The passage can be found in a discussion of the prophet Zechariah from the Book of Twelve Prophets:
Hane urbem diserte nominat, quod totius regni eaput et sedes sacrorum gentis universae esset.
Hane eloquently mentions the city as the seat of the whole kingdom and the seat of the holy people of the whole nation.
In our humble estimation, the two words only coincide by chance, because sacrorum here an adjective of gentis .
Dubious sources also use the English translation: Knights of the Holy See. However, there is/was no knightly order of this name. “Knights of the Holy See” is used exclusively as a collective term for papal knightly orders , as this document on an Italian government website shows.
Nazi organization as an order of knights?
Be careful, the following journey leads deep into the rabbit hole of conspiracy stories:
The Nazi SS, also known as the "SS" - a shortened name for the "Knights of the Holy See" - is a Roman Catholic spiritual and military order founded in 1933 after the signing of the "holy" Reich Concordat and based entirely on the structure of the Jesuit order.
In 1933, the Sig rune was converted into today's double SS rune badge by the graphic artist Walter Heck.
Whether coincidence or not, 1933 was also the year in which the Nazis signed the Reich Concordat in consultation with Pope Pius XI. and the Sedes Sacrorum (Holy See). So what did the abbreviation SS stand for under the Nazi regime? It is widely accepted that the SS was an abbreviation for the Schutzstaffel, a large paramilitary organization that was considered an elite unit and whose personnel were selected along racial and ideological lines. There is also evidence that the SS was an abbreviation for the Latin words Sedes Sacrorum. This would mean that the SS was a religious military order of the Roman Catholic Church, the Knights of the Sedes Sacrorum (SS).
As a secular order of the Roman Catholic Church, the Nazis are empowered by the "infallible" legal orders of the Roman Pope to wage a permanent Holy Crusade against all heretics in the name of the Mother Church, to protect the name of the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the interests to serve the SS (Sedes Sacrorum or Holy See). As a spiritual order of the Roman Catholic Church, the Nazis (like the Jesuits) were granted the extraordinary grace of being forgiven of all sins (and thus able to go to heaven), which "unfortunately" must be done in order to comply with the temporal orders of the church to fulfill. Since the Nazi Order (“Reichsritter”) was founded by a formal papal act and a papal charter in the form of the Reich Concordat of 1933, the continued existence of the Nazi Order is dependent on this legal document remaining in force. Since the German government and the Holy See (Vatican) maintain this concordat to this day, the Nazi Order remains legally and technically still in force, except that it has now been transferred to a new organization.
Origin of the Schutzstaffel, the SS symbol and the Reich Concordat
These crude ideas contain several false claims. The National Socialist Schutzstaffel is a few years older. Initially founded as “Saalschutz” (guarding the NSDAP event rooms) in 1925, Hermann Göring suggested renaming it to Schutzstaffel in the same year. The name was intended to be a reference to the air support squadron of the well-known fighter pilot from the First World War Manfred von Richthofen (Red Baron).
In 1929, graphic artist Walter Heck was commissioned to design the SS symbol . He had very specific ideas: On the one hand, the symbol should be modern, which is why letters from the Fraktur font were excluded. On the other hand, the S from the Latin alphabet was “too soft” for him. When he drew it, Heck had the shape of lightning in mind and may have been inspired by the lightning symbol that was already common at the time as a warning of high voltage. The Germanic Sig rune played no role in the design and is a later attribution.
The Schutzstaffel and its infamous symbol are years older than the so-called Reich Concordat. This state church treaty was concluded on July 20, 1933 between the German Reich and the Holy See. The Concordat deals with the mutual rights and obligations of both the German Empire and the Catholic Church in the Reich territory. The “secret appendix” to the document already referred to the planned introduction of general conscription. Candidates for the priesthood should be excluded from this, and trained priests and religious should only be deployed in the medical service in the event of mobilization.
There is no reference to the founding of an order of knights in the text of the document The National Socialist Schutzstaffel is not mentioned at all. You will search in vain for the two capital letters SS, as well as the expression “Sedes Sacrorum”. The Concordat was intended to ensure peace between the Nazi regime and the Vatican, but four years later Hitler changed his mind at a NSDAP party conference: “We will never tolerate anything in the national state putting itself above the authority of this national state. This may be what it wants to be – not even a church.” “Klostersturm” and further harassment against the Catholic Church followed.
NATO as the successor organization to the SS?
An absurd idea, because as a continuation of the anti-Hitler coalition, France and Great Britain had joined forces in the Dunkirk Treaty of 1947 against possible renewed aggression from Germany. In 1948, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg joined the alliance in the Brussels Pact. The declared goal: collective self-defense in the event of an attack on one of its members. In the Vandenberg Resolution of the US Senate (also 1948), it states that in return for the US agreeing to defend it, every European country must also promise to defend the US in return.
However, after the February coup in Czechoslovakia and the Berlin blockade, Western European states became increasingly concerned about aggression by the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries. The alliance partners - now under the name Western Union - turned to the USA for assistance against a potential threat from Eastern Europe. The following negotiations culminated in the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty by 12 European and North American states in April 1949. Over the years, Germany and 17 other European countries were added; NATO currently consists of 30 members.

But how are the Schutzstaffel, which was dissolved on October 10, 1945, and NATO, founded in 1949, connected? Formal: not in any way. And in their intention? Just as little. NATO's predecessor organization, the Western Union, was founded explicitly to be prepared for another war that might again start on German soil. The conspiracy stories are based on three clues: General Heusinger, NATO's eastward expansion and the unusual architecture of the new NATO headquarters in Brussels.
A Nazi officer in post-war Europe
For three years, until his retirement, German General Adolf Heusinger held an important position in NATO. From 1961 to 1964 he was chairman of the NATO Military Committee , making him “NATO’s highest military authority” for that time. This is remarkable because Heusinger was part of Hitler's staff during the Second World War and was involved in war strategies as well as atrocities in Eastern Europe. He was never part of the Schutzstaffel. During the Nuremberg trials, Heusinger was only questioned as a witness, but not listed as a defendant.

The US government was interested in the expertise of Third Reich reconnaissance personnel because its own intelligence services had little knowledge of the Soviet military at this point, when the Cold War was beginning to emerge. In addition to military reconnaissance and espionage against the Soviet occupation zone and other Eastern Bloc states, the Gehlen organization was also intended to ward off a possible “communist danger” inside West Germany.
Wikipedia about the employment of personnel from former Nazi organizations in the Gehlen organization
Shortly after the war, the USA began to set up a new intelligence service in Germany, which relied heavily on the expertise of former Nazi personnel. the Gehlen Organization using the name of the leader . head of evaluation under the code name “Adolf Horn” . The most important task: scouting out the military situation in the Soviet Union. The Federal Intelligence Service (BND) later emerged from this organization. From 1947, Heusinger also worked in the Historical Division of the US Army and was thus able to influence the rehabilitation of Nazi officers .
When Germany was allowed to build an army again, Adolf Heusinger was one of the first of its generals. In the same year - 1955 - Germany also became a NATO member. The Soviet Union did not like the fact that Heusinger chaired the NATO Military Committee from 1961 to 1964. She unsuccessfully requested his extradition in December 1961 for war crimes during World War II. Even after his years with NATO, Heusinger strongly opposed the further spread of communism and rejected a Central Europe free of nuclear weapons because that would endanger the existence of the Federal Republic.
Heusinger was never a member of the SS, but was involved in war crimes in Eastern Europe. He helped rehabilitate Nazi officers after the war, but there is no evidence that he attempted to establish Nazi ideas in NATO. His post-war efforts were particularly focused on taking action against the Soviet Union and defending against communism.
NATO and world domination?
In my view, NATO is the continuum of “Sedes Sacrorum” and reveals the involvement of the Vatican in historical developments, including Hitler. Does any fool doubt that NATO is designed for expansion? That's exactly what Hitler's goal was. World domination, dominance is the motto. About 70 years after Hitler, the PNAC study reveals the claim to global dominance. In order to distract from this fact, Putin is accused of striving for great power, while NATO is moving ever closer to Russia's borders.
These wild theories come from a conspiracy site that lacks any real evidence of its claims. I can only summarize the other anti-Semitic spin in key words: Hitler, NATO's eastward expansion, global financial elite, Zionists, world domination. And here the conspiracy narrative connects to the present: Putin would only defend himself in Ukraine against a Nazi NATO.
For me, NATO is the new Hitler. Who is striving for world domination here? Certainly not Russia! One cannot even accuse Putin of striving for great power.
Now what about the strange shape of the NATO headquarters, designed as four lightning-shaped S's? These are intertwined fingers, explain the responsible architects from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who led the consortium for the new building in Brussels. The new building (2008-17) replaces the old HQ in Brussels, which had become too small.
The design for the 41-hectare NATO campus on the outskirts of Brussels is reminiscent of fingers linked in a symbolic clasp of unity - an apt symbol given that NATO's mission has shifted from opposition and prevention to unity and integration changes.
SOM on their NATO Headquarters project page
And the morphing of the compass rose in the NATO flag into a Nazi swastika? First: the colors don't match. A white compass rose on a blue background (representing the waters of the North Atlantic) on one side, a black swastika on a white circle on a red field on the other. To make this discrepancy less noticeable, the background colors were omitted and the blue shadows of the compass rose were recolored black. Second: The compass rose was mirrored for morphing. Third: With enough intermediate steps, pretty much any form can be transformed into another. A proof of the creativity of the creators, nothing else.
CONCLUSION
There is and has not been an organization called the Knights of the Sedes Sacrorum. The Latin sounding words are an incorrect back translation. The National Socialist Schutzstaffel is not mentioned at all in the text of the Reich Concordat - nor is any other knightly order that is to be founded. Adolf Heusinger, Hitler's former staff officer, held an important position within NATO. However, there is nothing to indicate that Heusinger wanted to establish SS structures or their murderous ideology within NATO. Heusinger himself was never part of the SS. The NATO headquarters does not depict four Sig runes, but interlocked fingers.
More on the topic: Why is NATO Russia's eternal enemy?
If you enjoyed this post and value the importance of well-founded information, become part of the exclusive Mimikama Club! Support our work and help us promote awareness and combat misinformation. As a club member you receive:
📬 Special Weekly Newsletter: Get exclusive content straight to your inbox.
🎥 Exclusive video* “Fact Checker Basic Course”: Learn from Andre Wolf how to recognize and combat misinformation.
📅 Early access to in-depth articles and fact checks: always be one step ahead.
📄 Bonus articles, just for you: Discover content you won't find anywhere else.
📝 Participation in webinars and workshops : Join us live or watch the recordings.
✔️ Quality exchange: Discuss safely in our comment function without trolls and bots.
Join us and become part of a community that stands for truth and clarity. Together we can make the world a little better!
* In this special course, Andre Wolf will teach you how to recognize and effectively combat misinformation. After completing the video, you have the opportunity to join our research team and actively participate in the education - an opportunity that is exclusively reserved for our club members!
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

