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In episode 4 of Manhattan, Frank Winter has a flashback while walking alone through the desert at night. He sees a dead German soldier lying on his stomach. On the back of the helmet there is a swastika (the sign of the Nazis in WW2). As far as I know, the flashbacks are set in World War 1 (since it is Frank himself, fighting in this war).

So how can the soldier have a swastika (also with an imperial eagle holding it) on his helmet?

Did I get something wrong or is this a mistake in the series?!

Snapshop of the helmet

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  • Sounds odd, but might as well be his mind confusing pre-/post ww 1 stuff? Any change to get a screen cap of the actual helmet? They introduced the Stahlhelm back in WW1, so this might be a goof or something intentional.
    – Mario
    Sep 28, 2014 at 8:06
  • Yeah well my only explanation (besides being a mistake) was also, that frank got something confused in his mind. I added a snapshot from the scene to the original post. But even though there might have been the "Stahlhelm" in WW1, I am not quite sure that there is any way it had the swastika on it, since the sign was used by the nazis
    – Toby
    Sep 28, 2014 at 16:02
  • Okay, that's clearly a WW2 (or at least post ~'33) helm then. But at the same time those icons should have been on the sides.
    – Mario
    Sep 28, 2014 at 20:51

4 Answers 4

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It's not a flashback, it's Frank hallucinating.

Frank is in the present day (1943) in New Mexico approaching some trees when he hears what he heard in the trenches in 1918:

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Past the trees, he "sees" a man face down in a puddle of water:

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He bends down to turn the man over:

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After he turns the man around is when they then go back to the flashback with Frank as a young man in 1918:

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(All screenshots above from about 32:10 to 32:27 of S01E04.)

Frank hallucinates more as the series progresses. At this point, he doesn't hallucinate as much. But in this episode, Frank and two others had been 30 miles away from base, their jeep broke down, and had been walking back to base all day and night.

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This seems to be a mistake commited by the props-section of the producers. What you see there, is a Luftwaffe Decal (specifically Wehrmacht, 1935-1945). This could have been some symbolism, but what is really weird, is the location of this Luftwaffe decal/sticker/logo. They were absolutely never (never ever) applied, on the back above the liner rivet behind, which is what we see here. They were always applied on the left side, 3mm (standard) beneath the ventilation holes. German factories and workers did not make such mistakes - at least not to place it behind!

This looks a lot like someone who happened to have a helmet and a decal, and just put them together for fun, and then this ended up in some movie-props storage. Since you guys said that it is WWI, then it is also impossible that this decal would have been there.

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The use of the Swastika prior to WW2 and the Nazi party's use of it, was very common. It is (was) a general symbol of luck through many cultures. Even the Boy Scouts of America, American Soldiers, and Coca Cola used it! It was not uncommon to find it used throughout WW1. One notable one is the French and American fighter pilot Captain Raoul Lufbery, whom flew a American SPAD with the Swastika on it:

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The Imperial Eagle dates back to Roman times, and has constantly been in use. German has used the Imperial Eagle during WW1:

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But that specific image used on that helmet, of a flying Imperial Eagle holding the Swastika is the Luftwaffe Second Pattern emblem, used by the German Luftwaffe (Almost Literally: Air Force) of Nazi Germany before and during WW2 (1935 to 1946)

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As others have mentioned, the decal is placed on the side of the helmet, never the back.

The helmet doesn't match the standard Luftwaffe WW2 helmets either. It does seem to look like a M1918 WW1 helmet, given its very large rear slope.

As Frank is shown to be in WW1 trench warfare, where the use of Mustard Gas was most common, the wrongful depiction of a WW2 emblem design on a WW1 helmet is completely out of place. A production gaffe at best.

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    Hi cde; if I may, I noticed you rejected my edit with the "should've been an answer" reason (this edit). As put in the edit reason, the chunk of text added is the translation of what's written on the card, for accessibility purposes as not everyone can read French (so not a new answer). But mostly, I started editing because one of your images isn't working. Just saying, the edit seemed legit :/
    – Jenayah
    Feb 8, 2019 at 1:52
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The Swastika is a symbol has been around for ages. Heinrich Schliemann found it on the Troy-site where after it grew as a symbol of "Good luck" around the world. Later on it changed to the symbol of Nazism.

Although I didn't know this was used in WWI it pretty much makes sense to wish the soldiers good luck.

You can read more about it on Wikipedia.

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    "The Swastika is a symbol has been around for ages." - That might be the case, but it wasn't in much use, let alone largely known at all, in modern European cultures up until its "reimagining" by the Nazis for their purposes. So while it might make sense to wish soldiers good luck, that symbol and its usage for this case was just utterly unknown in WWI and that is clearly a WWII helmet in the picture.
    – Napoleon Wilson ♦
    Sep 30, 2014 at 10:28
  • Yeah pretty much this (@Napoleon Wilson). Of course the sign existed long before the nazis used it. But in germany it got used from 1920 on as a sign for the NSDAP (the political nazi party) and from 1935 as a crucial part of the german flag. Additionally, the Eagle holding the Swastika is also a nazi specific use of the sign.
    – Toby
    Sep 30, 2014 at 11:11

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