Swastikas trounce Argonne in Cleveland!

[Christiern]

From the Chicago Defender - March 20, 1920

[Aggie87]

Interesting how innocent that name was at the time.

[7/4]

I'm surprised anyone in the West knew what it was at the time.

The swastika (from Sanskrit svástika स्वस्तिक )

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[GA Russell]

Wasn't the swastika an American Indian design?

[Aggie87]

From wikipedia:

"The swastika shape was used by some Native Americans. It has been found in excavations of Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio valley. It was widely used by many southwestern tribes, most notably the Navajo. Among various tribes, the swastika carried different meanings. To the Hopi it represented the wandering Hopi clan; to the Navajo it was one symbol for a whirling winds (tsil no'oli'), a sacred image representing a legend that was used in healing rituals (after learning of the Nazi mimic "whirling winds" the Navajo rejected the symbol). A brightly colored First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada."

[GA Russell]

Thanks Aggie. Maybe I should just go to Wikipedia before I ever post anything!

[7/4]

I didn't even read the Wiki...I've seen the swastika in Hindu and Tibetan art. I forgot about the native american usage. It's ancient .

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[Noj]

If it weren't for the stigma, it would make for a really cool design element.

[Tim McG]

Wasn't the swastika an American Indian design?

It was, but a backwards symbol comapres to the Nazis.

Not the same.

[Christiern]

It (reversed) was also the logo for the Icelandic Steamship Co., on whose ship, SS Godafoss, I crossed the Atlantic twice in WWII. We encountered U-Boat packs, but were not among the sunken (did the Nazis see the flag?). Actually, the Godafoss (a sister ship to the one depicted in the poster) was eventually torpedoed and sunk (in 1944). Funny thing, I remember when the British occupied Iceland, in 1941, they stormed the Eimskip building, which was flying that logo flag. Guess it fooled them.

And here's an actual photo of the ship I sailed on...

[Spontooneous]

There are about a dozen swastikas in the architectural details of my parents' house in Kansas City. Built about 1920.

[Shrdlu]

Did anyone see that movie called "The Wave"? Very believable. I have some neighbors who would make excellent nazis.

[Big Al]

Learn something new every day. Did not know the history of the swastika. Thanks guys!

[Jazzmoose]

Apparently your school concentrated on one small part of history and ignored everything else. As an example, we learned that 1920 actually predated the war...

[Shawn]

i guess i am just saying-doesn't everyone learn about world war II in school? isn't part of learning about WWII, learning about the nazi party? isn't part of learning about the nazi party learning about their defining symbol? i guess not. my kids will be raised in canada. that's it.

The "point" isn't that we don't know what the Nazi party symbol was (we're not morons, thank you), but that the symbol pre-dated the Nazi's and has been used in variations by many different cultures. The symbol by itself is meaningless and neutral, it's only the use of it that colored it's history.

[7/4]

I say forever tainted.

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[Big Al]

Yeah, you can't look it anymore without associating it with what it represented in a very dark part of human history.

Edited June 2, 2008 by Big Al

[Christiern]

Apropos the lingering association, Eimskip has abandoned it and uses a new logo.

[RDK]

Will it ever be used again in a non-Nazi referencing aesthetic, or will it be forever tainted?

On a similar note, I had an uncle (my father's older brother) who was born in the early 1930s and given the name "Adolph." By the census data of 1940, his name had already been changed to "Adam." My dad, born in 1937, wasn't even aware of this as his brother's original name had already been changed and essentially forgotten by the family.

[Christiern]

A friend of mine, Ira, who is a jazz writer, called me a few years back when he had just switched from a typewriter to a Mac. He was using Microsoft Word and it kept changing the spelling of his last name to "Hitler." I solved the problem for him.

[Van Basten II]

Yeah, you can't look it anymore without associating it with what it represented in a very dark part of human history.

The same way no serious musician will ever want to be called Wynton

[Jazzmoose]

Actually, history courses I've been exposed to pretty much ignore the past thirty years, or anything relevant because it's "too controversial". I guarantee we spent more time studying WWII than the cold war or Vietnam back in the seventies. No one wanted to touch Vietnam...

[Shawn]

Actually, history courses I've been exposed to pretty much ignore the past thirty years, or anything relevant because it's "too controversial". I guarantee we spent more time studying WWII than the cold war or Vietnam back in the seventies. No one wanted to touch Vietnam...

We spent twice as much time on the Civil War as anything else, talked some about WWII...Korea was only mentioned as a "police action"...I don't think I ever heard my history teachers even SAY the word Vietnam.

[Dave Garrett]

Will it ever be used again in a non-Nazi referencing aesthetic, or will it be forever tainted?

On a similar note, I had an uncle (my father's older brother) who was born in the early 1930s and given the name "Adolph." By the census data of 1940, his name had already been changed to "Adam." My dad, born in 1937, wasn't even aware of this as his brother's original name had already been changed and essentially forgotten by the family.

My father was born in 1931, in East Texas, and his first name is "Adolph". He never changed it, but at some point he started using the nickname "Pete", and I don't think I've ever heard anyone call him anything else. He will sometimes go by his first and middle initial as well, but does not use his first name except on official documents. I'm not too well-versed in the ancestry of his side of the family beyond the fact that they hailed from the Alsace-Lorraine region along the Franco-German border before emigrating to Texas at some point during the 19th century, so perhaps that's where the name came from.

[Randy Twizzle]

My 6th grade social studies teacher in 67-68 sometimes talked about the Vietnam War and its accompanying turmoil. However I remember that most of the class discussions usually ended with his suggestion that hippies should be put out to sea on a leaky raft.