Balkenkreuz

The straight-armed Balkenkreuz, which is a stylized version of the Iron Cross, was the emblem of the World War II Wehrmacht and its branches: Heer, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine. The Iron Cross used by today's German Bundeswehr unified defense forces inherits the four white, or lighter-colored, "flanks" of the older Balkenkreuz that do not "cap" the ends of the cross in either case, but with the "flanks" following the flared arms of the earlier German Empire's Iron Cross (Eisernes Kreuz) instead from the 1916-March 1918 era.