World War II

World War II functions in the book less as a narrated historical episode than as a powerful reference point through which music, symbols, and political provocation acquire meaning. Its legacy appears in Bathory’s deliberately ambiguous imagery and lyrics, Slayer’s use of Nazi and fascist references, and the contrasting Norwegian associations attached to runes and communist iconography.

Music and the war’s symbolic vocabulary

The book describes Bathory’s 1991 album Twilight of the Gods as drawing on European classical composition and Nietzsche’s warnings about contemporary spiritual decline. Its song Under the Runes included veiled references to the SS divisions of World War II Germany. Quorthon said he had written it to provoke discussion of his father’s gods and Sweden’s pre-Christian past, but also deliberately made it possible to interpret the lyrics as a World War II song. That ambiguity, he explained, would keep the words in circulation and give him repeated opportunities to explain their intended subject.

Bathory’s earlier Hammerheart had also placed its music in a politically charged visual field. The back cover carried a sunwheel cross, described in the book as an emblem often used by radical right-wing organizations. Quorthon said the symbol also represented archaeology in Sweden, while acknowledging that it meant something very different in Germany. He likewise said he had not considered the political associations of the cover’s original black, white, and red colors—the colors of Germany—but that listeners reacted strongly enough for the design to be printed in gold instead.

Slayer and deliberate provocation

World War II references also formed part of the broader metal tradition discussed through Slayer. The band’s lyrics and packaging invoked Nazism and fascism alongside subjects such as violence, genocide, and religious persecution. Its fans were called the Slaytanic Wehrmacht, Nazi eagles appeared in the band’s logo, and songs addressed Josef Mengele. Guitarist Jeff Hanneman decorated his instrument with photographs of concentration-camp victims, and the band acquired an additional following among neo-Nazi skinheads.

The account cautions against treating these symbols as a straightforward statement of coherent racial politics. It notes that lead singer Tom Araya came from a Hispanic South American background, complicating any uncomplicated reading of Slayer as an Aryan project. The juxtaposition leaves the references significant as provocation and image even as the book questions how literally they should be taken.

Norway’s uneven historical associations

World War II also shaped the local meanings attached to political symbols in Norway. In considering why Øystein Aarseth’s particular form of communism failed to catch on in the black metal scene, the book suggests that Norway’s strong left-wing tradition may have made the trappings of communist dictatorships less startling. It contrasts that reception with runic symbols, whose association with the Vidkun Quisling regime made them more immediately shocking.

The contrast helps explain why the same scene could treat Eastern Bloc memorabilia and runic imagery so differently. World War II did not supply a single, uniform political code: its remembered regimes and symbols were filtered through Norway’s own political history, while Bathory and Slayer drew on the war’s iconography to create ambiguity, controversy, or an extreme public image.