MILITARY FACTS - FACT CAN BE STRANGER THAN FICTION

[The Mad Collector]

The Zara swastika handbag wasn't exactly a marketing success either

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7002765.stm

[pip]

Try go through India without seeing loads of Swastikas
Or try Finnish Air

Seemingly its a symbol for the Sun and Luck

[Maladict]

Or try Finnish Air

Seemingly its a symbol for the Sun and Luck

I've seen the swastika on old museum planes that were used in WW II, which would make sense since Finland was allied with Germany. It's certainly not used on Finnair planes nowadays. It was also used as a luck-symbol before the rise of the Nazis, so that it appears decorating the frames of some national-romantic style Finnish artwork from the 1800s at the Ateneum museum in Helsinki.

[Tonyblack]

It was used right up until 1945.

This from Wikipedia:

Swedish count Eric von Rosen gave the Finnish White government its second aircraft, a Thulin Typ D. Its pilot, Lieutenant Nils Kindberg, flew the aircraft to Vaasa on 6 March 1918, carrying von Rosen as a passenger. As this gift ran counter to the will of the Swedish government, and no flight permit had been given, it resulted in Kindberg receiving a 100 kronor fine for leaving the country without permission. This aircraft is considered by some to be the first aircraft of the Finnish Air Force, since the Finnish Air Force did not officially exist during the Civil War, and it was only the Red side who flew a few aircraft with the help of some Russian pilots. The von Rosen aircraft was given the designation F.1. The air force was officially called the "aviation force" during its first years. The Finnish Air Force is one of the oldest air forces of the world – the RAF was founded as the first independent branch on 1 April 1918 and the Swedish Flygvapnet in 1925.

Von Rosen had painted his personal good luck charm on the Thulin Typ D aircraft. This charm – a blue swastika, the ancient symbol of the sun and good luck – was adopted as the insignia of the Finnish Air Force. The white circular background was created when the Finns tried to paint over the advertisement from the Thulin air academy. The swastika was officially taken into use after an order by Mannerheim on 18 March 1918. The FAF had to change the insignia after 1945, due to an Allied Control Commission decree, where the swastika had to be abandoned due to its association with Nazism.

[Maladict]

I didn't know all the details, but at least I got the time frame right.

[Sjoerd3000]

Another Military fact: The Finnish air force used a few Dutch Fokker airplanes in WWII
Like this Fokker D.XXI

[Tonyblack]

What a nice little Fokker!

[meerkat]

Strange, but in blue it doesn't hold so much horror. It's when it's in black it starts to infer all sorts of nasty inclinations of 'he who must not be named'!

[BatrickPatrick]

Didn't the Nazis have it tipped on its point too?
And I read somewhere that it has a negative and positive meaning depending on which way around it is...Sort of like pentagrams and inverted pentagrams, or inverted crosses.

[Tonyblack]

As you can see from this Wiki, it is an ancient symbol used in many cultures on many continents.

[raisindot]

Strange, but in blue it doesn't hold so much horror. It's when it's in black it starts to infer all sorts of nasty inclinations of 'he who must not be named'!

If you're Jewish it could be in pink or orange or green or striped and it would still hold horror. The only time it doesn't hold horror is when it is absent.

[meerkat]

Unfortunately Raisin, I know what you mean.