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Finland phasing out swastikas on military unit flags [1]
['Rob Beschizza']
Date: 2025-08-30
Finland began using the swastika in its Air Force insignia years before the Nazis appropriated the symbol, and continued to use it after Hitler's regime was ashes. It dropped the swastika from its Air Force logo in 2020, but after joining NATO in 2023, things got a bit awkward with its new military allies when certain unit flags flew. And so the last of them are being phased out.
"Undeniably, we've had to explain from time to time the history of the (Finnish Air Force) swastika that dates back to 1918," [Brig. Gen. Jari] Mikkonen said. "It caused misunderstandings with our foreign partners, so continuing to use it was considered inappropriate and unnecessary." The swastika is an ancient symbol and a religious icon in many cultures dating back thousands of years.
But for a brief alliance of convenience against the Soviet Union during World War II, Finland was never under Nazi control and "adamantly refused to comply with demands from German authorities to hand over its own Jewish citizens for deportation." Nonetheless, Finland's use of the swastika had a Nazi connection in the form of Swedish aristocrat Eric von Rosen, who later joined the movement.
The Finnish Air Command swastika emblem dated back to March 1918, when the Finnish Air Force was created. Finland declared its independence from Russia a few months before, on Dec. 6, 1917. Swedish Count Eric von Rosen donated to Sweden's newly independent neighbor the first plane in air force, a Thulin Typ D reconnaissance plane with a blue swastika — the count's personal good luck charm — painted on the wings. … Von Rosen, an upper-class explorer and ethnographer, was the brother-in-law of Hermann Goering, a decorated World War I German fighter pilot who became an early Nazi Party member under Hitler
According to Wikipedia, the Nazis had already adopted the symbol by the time of Goering's association with von Rosen. All the same… awkward.
Just imagine some British Major General turning up at an air base in Kokkolaäteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä or wherever to hang out with their new allies and popping a vein seeing the flags. Bally hell what year is it!?
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https://boingboing.net/2025/08/30/finland-phasing-out-swastikas-on-military-unit-flags.html
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