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Swastikas & Disputes About The Swastika Symbol

That said, banning it is not the way forward. Ban a symbol and it goes underground, or is replaced by something else less obvious.

It's more fundamental than that. Banning something on such subjective grounds opens the door to the use of opinion as a reason to ban. You'd end up with tyrannical censorship in a figurative trice.

Hitler and the Nazis were evil.)
'Ol Joe Stalin was worse. By some millions.
 
The swastika on a diagonal, in a red, white and black colour scheme - is that design specific to the Nazis?
 
A fascinating and difficult subject, made more complex by some deeply embedded inaccurate assumptions and entrenched attitudes. The Nazis used only one version of the swastika. It was not, as many people have said, "reversed".

Very true. The Swastika is originally a symbol of the sun, and it is supposed to run clockwise, like the sun. The Nazi Swastika runs anti-clockwise or "widdershins", and it has been suggested that this is symbolic of a black sun that makes time move backwards; a very reactionary symbol that implies turning back time. There was an interesting analysis of what the Nazi Flag stood for. The red being blood, as in the communist flag (perhaps representing the blood of the communists? jk), then the white disc being symbolic of purity, and the black spider of the swastika crouching within the heart of that purity. The angularity of the Nazi swastika is there to imply dynamism. Interestingly, anthropologically, black (darkness) white (purity and cleanness) and red (blood) mean the same thing in all cultures, except China where white originally meant purity but due to its use in funeral practices has come to mean death.

In various cultures, the swastika has been used right handed, and in other cultures, left handed. The Wikipedia article shows one illustration of two mirrored swastikas, one being associated with Buddhism, the other with Hinduism and Jainism. Apart from their direction, they are otherwise identical.


The Isle of Man flag, with its 3-legged symbol has some of the characteristics of a swastika..

I must disagree. The 3 legged symbol is called a triskelion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion and carries meanings quite distinct to those of the swastika.

We now have an insane situation in which an ancient symbol with generally positive meanings has been ruined by its abuse by one political party in one country for one terrible but very short period of time. As someone said upthread, we don't ban crosses because the KKK use them.

To be fair it was a pretty major abuse, but, we also didn't ban the use of the hammer and sickle. As to the banning of crosses, lol, what a good idea.

That said, banning it is not the way forward. Ban a symbol and it goes underground, or is replaced by something else less obvious. Far right groups use "18" (as in Combat 18) because Hitler's initials were the 1st and 8th letters of the alphabet. The Valknut has also become a symbol of the far right, but its superficial similarity to Celtic knots means that the ordinary person in the street may not realise what they are seeing.

There are plenty of other symbols too. Here is an article about the use of 14 and 88, but many more symbols are alluded to.
http://www.spiegel.de/international...ecret-meaning-of-neo-nazi-codes-a-770820.html
Within the NeoNazi movement these are used as a rallying point, so that people know where to find fellow NeoNazis, without alerting the authorities. These become the visual language of a violent secret society/subculture. I don't want to dehumanize the NeoNazis completely, as many of them have very tragic personal stories, but the "answer" they have chosen is extremely antisocial, and heaven forefend they become more popular as a movement. I don't like censorship in any form, but an organization that is explicitly anti-democratic and that will actively dismantle democracy if it comes to power is a force that a democratic society has a necessary interest in protecting itself from.

Society and the media are also hypocritical about Hitler, Nazi symbolism and uniforms. It is wrong to go to a fancy dress party in a Nazi uniform, but perfectly acceptable to dress as Julius Caesar, or Attila the Hun, or Napoleon. In many countries you can no longer call your child Adolf (a once respectable name) but you can call your child Joe, Joseph, or Josef (as in Stalin).
(For the avoidance of doubt or misunderstanding: I am not in any way advocating the far right. Hitler and the Nazis were evil.)

I agree that Communism was ultimately a greater evil than Nazism, at least in the form it played out in Eastern Europe, China and Indochina. My family history has been marred by both sides of the same totalitarian coin, and I am not playing favorites. I suspect that Communism failed to attract the same complete social censure that the Nazis experienced as (a) they fought the Nazis bitterly (b) their iconography is less distincitve and less threatening (c) Communist party membership was always proportionally a larger part of the community than the Nazis in most of the West (d) Banning Communist symbols would have been inflammatory during the Cold War years. As to the Atilla, Napoleon etc. The distance of history and the very different attitudes towards warfare in the past have lent those names a certain critical distance that makes them less threatening.
 
Very true. The Swastika is originally a symbol of the sun, and it is supposed to run clockwise, like the sun.

This depends on how you apply the word "swastika". If, as is common practice, we apply the word to all icons of a broadly similar design, then various cultural examples are the same way round as the Nazi version. In some cases, it can be drawn either way. If we apply the word solely to the "swastika" as in the Hindu symbol of the sun, then the Nazi version is not a swastika, it's a hakenkreuz. We can't have it both ways.


I must disagree. The 3 legged symbol is called a triskelion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskelion and carries meanings quite distinct to those of the swastika.

You are disagreeing with something that I didn't say. I made no comment at all about the meaning of the triskelion.

It was clear from context that I was talking solely about the geometry of the shape. Similarly, I was not suggesting that the CTC "winged wheel" shared any symbolism with the swastika, only that it shared some aspects of the geometry. In both cases, identical bent/curved/asymmetrical arms radiating from a centre.
CTC_winged_wheel_ca.1927.jpg


...we also didn't ban the use of the hammer and sickle. As to the banning of crosses, lol, what a good idea.

An interesting example. The specific combination of hammer and sickle has a very clear meaning. It's not banned, but I'd be cautious where I wore it in the USA! As two separate items, they are merely a hammer, or a sickle.

I agree that Communism was ultimately a greater evil than Nazism, at least in the form it played out in Eastern Europe, China and Indochina.

Whoa! You are "agreeing" with me about something I never said. Whether communism was a greater or lesser evil than Naziism is a totally separate debate into which I have no desire to be drawn. I merely mentioned that "Adolf" is a banned forename in many countries, whereas the names Josef/Joe/Joseph are not banned. This is an inconsistency in our attitudes to two people from the same historical period who were each brutal on a massive scale. (Note: I wouldn't normally object in quite such direct terms, but please, don't ascribe a political view to me. There are people out there who would interpret "Communism is worse than Naziism" as a tacit support for Naziism — and vice versa.)
 
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The swastika on a diagonal, in a red, white and black colour scheme - is that design specific to the Nazis?

Well, exactly.

All arguments about the use and misuse of the swastika symbol aside, in the case of BNK48 the band are wearing late pattern Nazi era Reichskriegsflaggen (minus the peripheral Schwarze Kreuz, if anyone wants to get anal about it); they are not wearing something which is generally about swastikas, but something that is precisely about Nazism.
 
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Well, exactly.

All arguments about the use and misuse of the swastika symbol aside, in the case of BNK48 the band are wearing late pattern Nazi era Reichskriegsflaggen (minus the peripheral Schwarze Kreuz, if anyone wants to get anal about it); they are not wearing something which is generally about swastikas, but something that is precisely about Nazism.

Thought so, cheers for confirming my suspicions :twothumbs:
 
I remember reading a pretty interesting analysis of the Nazi flag, but I can't remember who it was by. The analysis went like this...

The base color of the flag is red, the same as the communist flags, which represents blood, but also communism. In the middle of the red is a circle of white that represents purity, also white racial purity, adrift in a sea of blood and communism. Then in the middle of the white purity sits a black spider, the swastika. The swastika is a sun symbol, and it normally runs clockwise, but the Nazi swastika runs counter-clockwise or widdershins, indicating this dark sun wants at its heart to turn back the clock.

I suppose that the same might be said of the Soviet flag, that the gold of the hammer and sickle represents elitism, and how under the pentagram, the apparent unity of the hammer and sickle may actually also represent their clash, and the outcome is a sea of blood that threatens to marginalize and overwhelm all three symbols.
 
I worked in Basingstoke some 16 or 17 years ago and would sometimes spend an interesting lunch hour at the Willis museum. It specialised in depicting the history of the local area from Stone Age until post WW2. The entrance hall used to feature a slab of stone, unearthed somewhere in the locality, featuring a small but distinct swastika carving. I believe it was dated from the Neolithic (or possibly Bronze age) and claimed to be one of the oldest known depictions of the swastika.
I went back to the museum a couple of years ago and the stone was no longer there.
 
So that's where Ade got his hard on for the bendy cross. I thought it was from a halucinatory vision he had on the BC bud he and I used to throw down during our days at Vancouver U, but no - ze fraus. Whoda thunkit? Where's Eva?
 
Nudged out of a cranny in my memory by something I just posted elsewhere.

With all due respect to current niceties and without wishing to offend anyone, the reality is that if some swaggering gang member handed the following 'business card' to anyone like myself, who went to a comprehensive in the 1970's, rather than the intended intimidation the reaction would most likely be at least five minutes of rolling around the floor in my fat tie and baggy trousers in uncontrollable hysterics:

Gaylord.jpg
 
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A proper Gaylord would want you to lie on your front.
 
Pepperoni with extra swastika.

Jason Laska stopped at a Little Caesars to grab a pre-made "Hot-N-Ready" pizza for his family.

When he got home, he and his wife discovered a (reverse) swastika made from pepperoni on the pie.

Laska told CNN he tried to call the store but the number was constantly busy so he posted to social media.

According to Little Caesar Enterprises spokesperson Jill Proctor, the two ignorant dumbfucks who made the pizza admitted to it and were fired.

https://boingboing.net/2020/06/30/family-finds-pepperoni-swastik.html
 
Finnish Airforce Drops Swastika Symbol

Finland's air force has been using a swastika ever since it was founded in 1918, shortly after the country became an independent nation and long before Nazism devastated Europe.

Until 1945 its planes bore a blue swastika on a white background - and this was not intended to show allegiance to Nazi Germany, though the two nations were aligned.

While the symbol was left off planes after World War Two, a swastika still featured in some Air Force unit emblems, unit flags and decorations - including on uniforms, a spokesperson for the Finnish air force told the BBC.

Prof Teivainen told the BBC that swastikas could be seen in Finland on buildings dating from the 1920s.

"In Finland there's this idea that it's a random decorative sign - which to some extent it is," he said.

The famed Finnish artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela first used the symbol in a painting in 1889.

But the swastika became associated with the Finnish air force via a very different man - a Swedish nobleman called Count Eric von Rosen.

The count used the swastika as a personal good luck charm. When he gifted a plane to the nascent air force of Sweden's newly independent neighbour in 1918 he had had a blue swastika painted on it. This Thulin Typ D was the first aircraft of the Finnish air force and subsequent planes all had his blue swastika symbol too, until 1945.

Supporters of a continued use of the symbol point out that there were no Nazis in 1918 so the air force's use of the swastika has nothing to do with Nazism.

However, while Eric von Rosen had no Nazi associations at the time of his 1918 gift, he did subsequently become a leading figure in Sweden's own national socialist movement in the 1930s. He was also a brother-in-law of senior German Nazi Herman Göring, and, according to Prof Teivainen, a personal friend of Hitler.

Old & new versions of airforce emblem.
Old logo of Finnish Air Force Command at left, next to current logo of Air Force


Restored DC-2 plane shows the wartime insignia of the Finnish air force.

Veteran DC-2 transport aircraft 'Hanssin-Jukka' of the Finnish Air Force has been restored for museum display.
 
It's interesting that even now in Germany remnants of swastikas can still be seen, together with eagles which formed part of the same theme. Geoff Walden's site "Third Reich in Ruins" shows some examples .
 
There is nothing as unintentionally amusing as being in a plane full of paratroops and watching the Finns drop off.
 
The National Museum in Helsinki contains a ceremonial necklace which important visitors would wear on their visits. Next to it was a photograph of Charles de Gaulle wearing it, complete with its swastikas. He did look a little uncomfortable.
 
The unincorporated village of Swastika, New York, is keeping its original name ...
Swastika, New York, Is Keeping Its Name

Michael Alcamo lives in New York City but loves cycling through the Adirondack Mountains in northern New York, with their tiny towns and hamlets and historical cemeteries.

He was on a trip like this, winding through a remote stretch this summer, when he noticed something else, a small brown street sign with the name "Swastika."

At a time when symbols and place names with links to white supremacy are being debated across the U.S., Alcamo found the name of the unincorporated hamlet he had crossed into unsettling. ...

"I think it should be obvious that the town should update its name and should pick a name that is not so offensive to so many Americans and so emblematic of intolerance, hate and tyranny," he said.

So Alcamo reached out to county officials in August to see if they would consider it. He was soon directed to email the town of Black Brook, a town of about 1,500 residents with jurisdiction over Swastika.

The town agreed to add it to their agenda for their meeting this month. And after five minutes of discussion at their Sept. 14 meeting, the town's four councilors unanimously voted against it. ...

"Swastika was named by the founders of the area who settled there," said Jon Douglass, Black Brook's supervisor ...

Douglass says the hamlet's name far predates World War II and came from the Sanskrit word meaning well-being. The four-sided geometric character that represents the swastika has been used for thousands of years in Indian religions and seen as a symbol of good luck.

The swastika's meaning was overshadowed beginning in the 1930s with the rise of Adolf Hitler, who co-opted the figure as a symbol for Nazism and anti-Semitism.

Douglass says this is not the first time the hamlet's name has been scrutinized.

"There was concern that due to the Germans and everything that people may have a different outlook on the name. And some of the residents that were from that area actually fought in World War II and refused to change the name just because Hitler tried to tarnish the meaning of swastika," he said.

Douglass says the council did not see a reason to change the name despite its widespread use as a symbol of hate and white supremacy today.

"I think that's probably, maybe some viewpoint that it's associated with hate. But then I believe there are others that do not associate it with hate," he said. "Did the Hindus and the [Buddhists] and all them, did they erase it from their religious history because of the Germans?" ...

SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-u...5307315/swastika-new-york-is-keeping-its-name
 
"Did the Hindus and the [Buddhists] and all them, did they erase it from their religious history because of the Germans?"
I've often wondered what would have happened if the Nazis chose the Latin cross as their symbol. Would western society shun it the way it shuns the swastika today?
 
I've often wondered what would have happened if the Nazis chose the Latin cross as their symbol. Would western society shun it the way it shuns the swastika today?

Interesting question ... However ... It's pretty apparent that the long-term Nazi ideological vision included co-opting, if not eradicating, Christian influences (seen as 'foreign'). The persistence of Christian institutions during WW2 didn't represent Nazi acceptance as much as a truce or time-out in the anti-Christian campaign begun in the 1930s. The long term objective was to eliminate the church as a power structure and consolidate its influence into the all-subsuming national / state apparatus.

As such, I find it unthinkable that Nazism could have adopted the Latin cross as its paradigmatic symbol.

Having said that ... I'm not sure other, similar, developments cast much light on the question. German military iconography emphasized the cross pattée (e.g., in the Iron Cross), which was a heraldic / military icon derived from the Greek or Maltese cross and adopted in the 19th century. This derivation induced a sort of indirect association with the Christian cross which probably helps to disconnect the symbol from Christianity in most folks' eyes. In stylized form the German cross pattée survives as a military emblem even though the Iron Cross medal was discontinued.

Another factor to be considered is that the swastika - though an important / highly symbolic element in many world religions and cultures - is not a 'brand logo' for any religion analogous to the Latin cross for Christianity. My point is that adopting a Latin cross - the logo for the Christian 'brand' - would have implied an affiliation or acceptance the Nazis certainly didn't espouse. It would have insinuated approval for a specific religious institution in a way that invoking a non-logo symbol from another tradition did not suggest.

Such an adoption would have been monumentally ironic given the fact the Latin cross was the logo for the primary entity they wished to effectively eliminate as an internal competitor to the unified state power structure.
 
Hitler has only got one ball ...

Soldier with a swastika tattooed on his testicle is jailed for 19 months for breaching Austria's Nazi glorification laws​

  • He downed whisky before brother tattooed the banned symbol on his scrotum
  • 29-year-old posted pictures of tattoo online and showed it off to army comrades
  • He was sentenced to 19 months in prison for the glorification of Nazism and illegal firearm possession at the court in the city of Klagenfurt
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...d-19-months-breaching-Austrias-Nazi-laws.html
 
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