Despairing beyond words. “The evil that men do lives after them...

...the good is oft interred with their bones".

Metaphores, including symbolic images, is part of human language. Part of the swastika metaphore brings up thoughts of inhumanity, death and destruction, and to display the swastika metaphorically condones it. For the swastika to symbolize the German people, as a metaphore, has and is diminishing. IMHO

During both world wars, negative metaphores related to Germany were at their peak. For many, anything related to Germany was hated. Yet in an attempt to counteract this basically required to remove the metaphore. German named dogs, and even towns and streets, were renamed. Nearby, was a place called Germantown, it was renamed Empire Vale. The German Shepherd was renamed Alsatian, and the Great Dane dog was originally known as the German Boarhound.

In regards to model making, many European countries have a long, and strong, history of artistic talent. Poland, Ukraine, and Switzerland quickly come to mind. Germany has always been seen as a nation excelling in engineering.

@flyingwrench

‘Wolf in the Fold’ - a great episode (in some ways) that is reviled by feminists the world over. A few Star Trek episodes channeled Shakespeare; for example ‘Conscience of the King’ - and one of the starships (I’m sure it was in the Original Series) was called the USS Lady McBeth. This carries on a grand Shakespearean tradition in Sci-Fi possibly originating from ‘Forbidden Planet’ based on The Tempest...

G. Ley (@flyingwrench)

The swastika was not originally a German symbol. It's much, much older than nazi Germany leaders having appropriated it and used it as a national symbol.
Its origins are at least some 12.000 years old!

There are still many variations of that symbol, many are still used (as they have always been) in many cultures around the world, Tibet and Buddhism being just one example, or India and Sanskrit, where "swastika" means "well-being". But the symbol, on its many variations, can be found all around the world!

It's easy to find a lot of info online about the subject.

As for being portrayed in WWII Germany military aircraft, ships, space-ships, whatever, I know about those rigid laws in Germany nowadays, but just like you I find it silly, because we are free to use them all over the rest of the world. I never hesitated using a swastika decal in one of my Bf-109 or Stuka, or military vehicles from that time period. It has nothing to do with liking or disliking the symbol, it's a matter of Historical accuracy instead.

Cheers!

Dolf

History - my favorite subject

I am aware of the ancient history of the symbol. As I pointed out, Germans called their emblem the
"Hakenkreuz." The term "swastika" is from a different culture. The swastika can be either right or left handed, the Hakenkreuz was right hand only.

Regarding the Hakenkreuz as metaphor of death and destruction, who put that idea into our heads? Germans certainly did not feel that way about their National Socialist party, nor did people like Charles Lindbergh and Henry Ford.

It is interesting that Jews declared war on Germany in 1933, just nineteen days after Hitler was elected to the Reichstag on March 5th - before he became dictator, before he had a chance to implement policy and long before WWII began. Why might that be? What did Jews know that no one else knew at the time?

"Judea Declares War on Germany! Jews of all the World Unite! Boycott of German Goods!
Mass Demonstrations!" - Daily Express on March 24, 1933.

"The Israeli people around the world declare economic and financial war against Germany.
Fourteen million Jews stand together as one man, to declare war against Germany. The Jewish
wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock exchange, the merchant his commerce and
the pauper his pitiful shed in order to join together in a holy war against Hitler's people." - Daily
Express, March 24, 1933.

Holy war? Like a Jihad? And what is war, if not economic and financial?

https://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/jdecwar.html

I suggest reading FDR's secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau Jr's "Morgenthau Plan" for post war Germany. This was a plan he submitted to Roosevelt and Congress that promptly rejected it. Morgenthau was the principal agent for wartime funding. http://gmperish.far.ru/html/wMorgenthauPlan.html

Then there is Theodore N. Kaufman's book "Germany Must Perish!", published in 1940, once again before the war began. This is one of the better books describing the attitudes of the people that declared war on Germany in 1933. https://wikispooks.com/w/images/a/a7/Germany_Must_Perish.pdf

As for death and destruction, the book that goes far beyond a metaphor is Thomas Goodrich's book "Hellstorm" about American atrocities committed against Germans after - yes after - the war.

There was nothing close to this carried out against the Japanese after the war. Yet the Japanese carried out similar atrocities against both China and the allied powers, like the Bataan death march and the prisoners that built the bridge you are modeling.

Warning! One needs a strong stomach to read about these well documented atrocities against the German people that occurred after Germany's surrender, atrocities that for some odd reason no one heard about until now. I was so sickened, I had to quit reading halfway through. This book is guaranteed to change the reader's outlook about the allied war effort. http://thomasgoodrich.com/

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

G. Ley (@flyingwrench)

Your post is in double. You may consider deleting one, probably the 2nd one, so you can keep the pic attached to the 1st one.

Not going into politics here, sorry. We know it's not welcome on Forums that are not created for that exact goal, and is usually forbidden by most Forum rules, or at least advised against.

Cheers!

Dolf

G, you are more than welcome to post on this thread. It's all informative and hopefully inspiring for others to express their love for modelling what they model.

Hope you will get involved with this group build.

@flyingwrench