The new commander of the Karelia Air Wing said the swastika symbol has put the Finnish Air Force in "awkward situations".

[Swedish] count [Eric von Rosen] 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.

So the fascists adopted the swastika by way of a Swedish Count-cum-fascist.

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Force_Academy_(Finland)

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
      8·
      18 days ago

      The use of the swastika in Europe (and colonies) outside of the Nazi Party and prior German occultism is interesting in hindsight. Before the Nazi Party’s rise in the 1930s and the resulting mainstream international recognition, it was a widely used symbol even in the West.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_use_of_the_swastika_in_the_early_20th_century

      But you just gotta laugh when neo-fash think they can get away with the “Buddhism” excuse. Even they know it’s foolish:

      “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

      • Jean-Paul Sartre (1946)[1]