If I recall correctly, a ban of the swastika was initiated by post-WWII Western European governments of nations conquered by Germany during the Second World War…
Those nations were never subjugated by the Soviet Union and the citizens of those countries never experienced the absolute power held by Stalin.
Not really a surprise, considering Polish experiences in 1919, 1939 and finally 1944 thru the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And following up on 1939 of how top Polish leaders were “invited” by the Soviets to prepare for a German assault which in turn ended with the Soviets shooting them all dead in the forest and throwing them in a pit… Anger still to this day over that. Posters were up in the main part of Warsaw with Putins face on it calling him a liar and what not over his denial on the incident.
The total ban has only ever been applied in Germany and Austria, the excuse being that they did not want the neo-Nazis to be able to use the symbol as a rallying call. France, Holland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark have never endorsed it. The ban has existed for a long time, and has affected a lot of modellers; around 35 years ago, I bought a Revell 1/48 P-51B, which had had the swastika kill markings cut off.
A few years ago, Germany tried to get the EU to support a total European ban, but were told, by the other nations, what they could do with their legislation.
Interesting.
I have heard of the Soviets doing that to out of favor Soviet citizens but did not recall reading of that particular “invitation” to Polish leaders…
…one of the NKVD’s favorite techniques; second only to sending heavily armed troops to arrest people - with the same end result of course.
Ninetalis,
I think you can expect sh*t like that to happen when you order german models from any european importer.
In my case, my LHS orders most of his stuff (RoG and Tamyia) through a german importer and he once complained to me about this issue. He showed me his latest shipment of tamyia armor kits and behold, the swastika’s and DAK logo’s were all blacked out with a text marker, ruining the decals.
For europeans i guess the only remedy to this is to paint or print your own swastika’s or order decalsheets directly from Asia or the US
Personally it does’t bother me much, more of a nuisance and very often (like with the kriegsmarine flags on the RoG submarines) i just use the decal as is. I guess that is where the accuracy issue rears it’s ugly head [:)]. I just don’t care about it that much and if i did i would take afforementioned options into advisement.
Just avoid european importers. Doesn’t matter much on price, it just takes longer to arrive
Richard
Whoops, sorry Sprue-ce Goose, my brain had a glitch, getting somethine else mixed up with the Katyn Massacre… Polish officials were captured and killed by the Soviets in a mass murder and blamed it on the Nazi’s.
I’m betting that this thread will quickly die…
But in any case, several manufactures have swastika decals available.
You may be right,but so far it has been informational with nothing inflammatory
Forgive me… i must have been away for a vacation when it happened…
I completely fail to see how a thread about european legal issues concerning swastika’s being omitted or removed/ rendered useles in a kit would be offensive to anyone. Must be me[:)]
It is a topic i see alot in the european modeling forums. It is a PITA but those laws in itself are understandable. Like i said, if a european modeler encounters this problem it is certainly not impossible to obtain or otherwise create such markings.
Richard
Greetings,
Been following this thread with interest. I think it’s a good discussion, and relevant to me because I plan to soon start a 1/48 Tamiya P-51 and will need some proper swastika kill markings. Can anyone recommend a specific decal sheet that would have a variety of these markings?
It doesn’t really bother me, its something i have gotten used to. I now find it a plesant surprise when i do get them. But even in the UK, they are creeping back into a lot of kits. All the Hase kits i have bought recently have them. I think its the Dragon kits that have the multie part ones. And RoG kits simple don’t have them.
I recall many years ago seeing the hase DAK markings with the symbol simple not there. But i have never come across the markings being blanked off with pen or anything like that. they are either there or they ain’t.
I guess Japan’s actions against humanity doesn’t count and Unit 731 never existed.[^o)]
The Rising Sun decals are sharpied out from models made in China…
@plasticjunkie: I think the main difference that the laws making swatika’s illegal are german. Post war rightly germany took a lot of the blame/guilt WWII (altough there are several cases in which they did not). On of the reactions was to ban swastika’s and make it illegal to deny the holocaust.
Japan did not take these kind of actions after the war.
I think that banning swastika’s is a symbolic gesture. And not very effective.
Furthermore, a lot of other atrocities have been commited, references have been made to the USSR and Japan in this tread. Both subjects which are modelled often. I do not think than banning the depiction of the symboles used by countries or parties commiting atrocities is an effective way of stopping those ideoligies that lead to these atrocities.
And where should one draw the line? Nazi Germany? USSR? Imperial Japan? All taboo? What about Atilla the hun? Or the imperial german atrocities in Namibia? Or the Spanish in occipied Holland? And I think the Romans also had there moments…
[|-)]YAWN
[^o)]
well, for all who don’t know, the swastika symbol was allready used in India for centuries, symbolising the eternal movement of mankind, but in the the divergent interpretation of the nazi regime it became the symbol of the Aryan race.
There was also the Red Swastika society in China
http://www.thatsqingdao.com/2012/04/qingdao-old-town-red-swastika-卍-society