From The Times August 21, 2007
Where eagles daren’t - Barclays lowers its ‘too Teutonic’ symbol
Alan Hamilton
It’s only the trademark of a well-known bank, but there have been mutterings that it looks a bit too, well, Teutonic. After 30 years on top of the Barclays Bank building in Poole, Dorset, the spread eagle that in various guises has been the symbol of the bank and its predecessors for more than 300 years was lowered 117 feet to the ground yesterday. Barclays has been forced to deny that the removal of the 14ft (4.3-metre) wide aluminium bird, weighing three and a half tonnes, had anything to do with rumours that ABN Amro, the Dutch bank which Barclays is wooing, might be more amenable to takeover were One Barclays insider said: “It is rather a Teutonic-looking eagle and has unfortunate connotations.” Until yesterday the eagle sat atop Barclays House, built in 1976 and workplace for 2,500 employees. One body of local opinion thought it made the office too like a building in 1930s Berlin, but a recent poll in the town showed that 93 per cent of citizens were so fond of it that they wanted it kept. Barclays said that its eagle symbol was constantly redesigned to keep up with the times. “It’s nothing sinister. The eagle is coming down purely because it is out-of-date branding. We are still committed to the region and its removal is not linked to any deals that have been ongoing,” said a spokesman for the bank. Jeff Baldock, whose company, Coastal Transport Site Services, took down the eagle, said that it had been a tricky but enjoyable operation. “We don’t get many high-profile jobs like this, but we’re happy when they do come along; I thrive on stuff like this.” When John Freame and Thomas Gould founded the Goldsmith Bank in Lombard Street in the City in 1690 they adopted the spread eagle as their trademark. When theirs and many other private banks merged to form the present-day Barclays in 1896, the emblem continued in use as the trademark of the new bank, and has remained so ever since.
In heraldry the eagle has been used in countless armorial bearings as an allegory of power. Since the days of the Crusaders the eagle has been used in personal coats of arms to indicate a man of action and courage. Shown with its wings spread, it traditionally indicates the bearer’s role as a protector. Barclays has traded on its symbolism ever since to suggest that it is a strong bank that will protect your money. Fallen Eagle is also the title of a book, published in 2000, detailing what its author saw as the decline of Barclays as a power in world banking.
Wing and preyer
— A spread eagle has figured in the arms of Germany for 800 years. The Nazis drew it in an art deco style with swastika as the symbol of the Third Reich
— The original design has been restored to the arms of Germany and Austria, but neither the modern nor the Nazi version looks very like the Barclays trademark
— A similar symbol also appears on the obverse of the Great Seal of the USA
The Guardian
June 19, 2007
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/open_thread/2007/06/has_the_eagle_crash_landed.html
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Taking flight: the Barclays eagle outside its headquarters in Lombard Street, London. Photograph: Dan Chung.
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Has the eagle crash-landed?
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If a £96bn merger with Dutch bank ABN Amro goes through, Barclays bank may have to lose its iconic 300 year-old spread-eagle emblem.
ABN Amro is concerned that the symbol, which has been with the bank since its inception, has unfortunate Nazi connotations. The powerful logo has been redesigned and toned down over the years but, following the deal, it will be dropped altogether and replaced by ABN’s shield.
Under the merger proposal, Barclays headquarters will move from London to Amsterdam, where, following the five-year German occupation of the Netherlands during the second world war, there are still sensitivities and the Barclays eagle is deemed too close to Nazi imagery.
Lord Janner of Braunstone, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust, told the Times: "I’ve been a customer of Barclays for half a century and never noticed. It has never entered my head. But the Netherlands was an occupied country and Barclays should be sensitive."
If the merger fails, Barclays has said it will not change its emblem. As a multinational company, though, should Barclays consider its symbolism for other nations and ground the eagle?
A selection of the readers comments:
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<li>Hypersensitivity. I’ve been an anti-fascist for thirty years and a Barclays customer for fifteen of those and never seen the connection. Will the Albanians and Polish also have to consider dropping their eagles as being too fascist?</li>
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<li>The eagle was originally a symbol of the Roman Empire, way before the Nazis, just as the Swastika was originally a Buddhist symbol. I hate to use the old ‘PC gone mad’ argument but it really is a bit much to be thinking about doing away with it because of a fairly tenuous link…I notice that no-one has banned black shirts and striped pyjamas…yet.</li>
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<li>Might this not just be an excuse - Barclay’s think their logo is dated, and some bright spark decides that they can rebrand at huge cost, but pretend its all about being sensitive so as not to annoy their customers as they spend millions doing it?</li>
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Maybe if the Barclay’s folks had stuck to the proper Barclay’s eagle instead of deciding to fiddle around with colors and designs, this issue wouldn’t have come up.
The Barclay’s eagle is supposed to be blue, with three crowns charged on the wings and breast. Like this:
You definitely have a point Joseph about all the odd variations of the Barclay’s eagle that have been produced in recent years. I searched the Internet for more images but all I found were strange black outlined blue or blue and purple eagle’s affixed to a sphere in some odd 3D sort of manner. It could be that corporate management has decided that all of the "innovative" tinkering has destroyed the eagle as a symbol.
