I have a Panzerkampfwagen IV and a bf109 on my computer at work and one of my co-workers asked why I didn’t have the Swastika on the Panzer. I told him it didn’t sport one which made me realize that I don’t recall any German artillery having one on it, just the cross. I know it was on the flags, uniforms and other smaller items, but was it only placed on their aircraft and not other equipment or have I just not been paying close enough attention in my research?
Just curious.
-fish
Perhaps the Generals of the Panzer corps were not the die hards Goering was?
Don
I’ve seen photos of some German armor and soft skin vehicles serving in North Africa that have a swastika incorporated into the palm tree emblem of the North African campaign.
I have seen a few other incidences of the swastika on German armor, but usually a great deal more inconspicuous and smaller than the sort the Luftwaffe used.
Some of the Emblems for SS Panzer Divisions had the swastika’s in them like the Afrika Corp’s emblems it just depend on the unit, I have an old set of decals from an old Tamiya King Tiger Tank and a few division emblems have the swastika’s in them
Ugly Butt Well Hung; Hawgs
cuda
German tanks, at least at one stage, had swastika flags that could be draped over the vehicle as an aid to air recognition. Also some German ships also used a painted swastika on the deck near the bow for the same purpose.
Dai
Finland had a big blue swastika emblem for a time during world war two.
The Finnish Blue ‘swastika’ was not actually a swastika at all but a “hakristi”, a good luck symbol used by Count Erik von Rosen of Sweden, who donated a Swedish-built Morane-Saulnier Type L, wearing this symbol, to the White Army in Finland in 1918…The symbol was later officially adopted by the Finnish Air Force and predates the German one by many years and has no connection to Nazism or Germany whatsoever…
I know… Too much information…Sorry…
footcav42
Maybe it isn’t quite to the topic, but there is something more to add to footcav’s words. First of all swastikas were used by RAF pilots during WWI. Since swastika itself is an oriental symbol of luck, some of british pilots used it to decorate their a/c. After the WWI and russian revolution lots of independent countries emerged. One of them was Latvia - they adopted swastika too, but they weren’t nazi.
P.S. I have seen some decorations of viking ships, that resemble swastika - bad baaaaad vikings [}:)] [:D]
It wasn’t till Hitler adopted the swastika and it became associated with Naziism that it became a bad thing. It was a good luck symbol for centuries up til then. The rat-bastard.
To make it more interesting, the swastika, with arms reversed, is an old Southwestern Indian good luck sign. It was originally on the shoulder patch of the 45th Infantry Division until the start of WWII for obvious reasons.
The 5thSS-Panzer Division Wiking used a circular style swastika.
I just read a book called “Goering’s War”. There was a quote in it to the effect that the German armed forces consisted of an Imperial navy, a Prussian army and a Nazi air force. Unfortunately I took it back to the library yesterday so I can’t confirm the source of the quote.
I thought the swastika was a celtic symbol. Hence why the vikings used them too…
Nazi’s seriously tick me off. Not only did they steal and ruin one celtic symbol, local neo-nazi’s have adopted the CELTIC CROSS of all symbols as ‘theirs’. Being half-Irish (as in my mum’s over in Ireland Irish), I’m offended by this. It also shows their stupidity. Not only do they have disgusting beliefs, they don’t even have the imagination to come up with a symbol of their own.
Hi guys, going by memory, isn’ t the german swastika the opposite way around to the buddist symbol. ?
Finland had a blue one and somewhere like Latvia or Estonia had a pre-war swastika in red I think.
There was even an RAF Sqn. that had a green buddist styled swastika on it’s squadron badge, which for the political correct you never seem to see, even at the RAF Museum which has a wall with all the crests of the squadrons on.
Pete
Swastika on aircrafts of Luftwaffe is showing that’s Nazi’s Luftwaffe.but on another Army such as Panzer,Kriegsmarine,etc. don’t have Swastika on their own unit except on some signal or war flag,such as German Navy war flag,2nd SS " Das Reich " division,SS " Wiking " division,but usually Swastika found only on every aircraft of wwii German Luftwaffe ,or some fighter in wwi
In his book ‘Comet’, Carl Sagan talks about the origins of the svastika symbol. It is thought to be a comet viewed head on. I am still surprised at times to find that symbol on things absolutely un-related to Nazi Germany, but obviously, before Hitler decided he had to create a third Reich, the svastika type of symbols meant something else altogether. Our minds have been conditionned to see it, to associate it with Nazi Germany. A Belgian Air Force squadron has a svastika type symbol in its emblem during WWI. It can still be seen at the Brussels Air Museum, on an aircraft that still retains its original scheme.
On this note, it does look like our good friend pongpeera is still around… He or she has never, as far as I know, answered our questions about the meaning of his screen name. Am I just too touchy???