Viral images present a design drawing of NATO's headquarters made in 2010. While the drawing accurately captures the shape of NATO's present HQ, the white lines were added in an attempt to highlight the building's supposed Nazi symbolism.
In April 2024, claims re-emerged online that Nazi symbolism was present in the design of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium. According to some users on X (formerly Twitter), the building looks like the symbol used by the Schutzstaffel (SS) — the Nazi paramilitary force. This illustration often often accompanies those claims:
Such assertions are not new. Framing NATO as the continuation of Nazi fascism is a popular Russian claim, and it factors heavily in Russian propaganda related to the war in Ukraine. Ukraine has received significant financial support from NATO member states in its fight against Russia.
The illustration in these tweets does not stem from a photograph, but from architectural renderings released in 2010 of the design selected for NATO's headquarters building, which was completed in May 2017.
The viral image based on these renderings highlights the purported "SS" in white. This is an alternation that is not present in the drawing or finished building itself. Aside from the white highlights on these drawings, however, those renderings accurately captured the building that was ultimately built, shown below via Google Maps:
A similar aerial view is found in the Getty Images archive:
The building was designed by the American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Larry Oltmanns, a partner with the firm, described the design as "a three-dimensional representation for a complex decision-making body." According to NATO, the building's design is meant to resemble "interlocking fingers."
While the question of the presence of symbolism is largely in the eye of the beholder, it is factual that the building depicted in illustrations is what the NATO headquarters actually looks like. For that reason, the claim is "True."