La Finlandia rimuoverà le svastiche dalle sue bandiere dell’aeronautica per evitare “imbarazzo” con gli alleati occidentali
https://www.euronews.com/2025/08/29/finland-will-remove-swastikas-from-its-air-force-flags-to-avoid-awkwardness-with-western-a
di Abject-Pick-6472
15 commenti
The very first lines of the article – “Blue swastikas on white backgrounds that have featured on the flags of various Finnish Air Force units since 1918” – are sufficient to not remove them.
Honestly, they shouldn’t. Of course it’s a bit “awkward” to say the least but they have been using that symbol since 1918 when the NSDAP didn’t even exist yet. Why let the Nazis ruin this tradition as well?
Damn, so many swastika fans in the comments, what’s going on?! Oh wait, this is r/europe, never mind.
It is a gift for Russian propaganda regardless of the contest or history. Finns did the right thing here imo.
The Finns have nothing to prove to the EU regarding their arts of/in war!
The EU appreciates very much the choice of this air group to rebrand itself, in consideration of how shamefully the rest of the EU has behaved at times.
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Please don’t let this change your history.
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Thank you.
Well, at least they’ll avoid the russian *denazification* meme.
They should keep it
Remove that shit. Fuck it
Its time for buddhist and hindus to reclaim the symbol from the long dead nazis.
Remove it now
The entire case with swastika is funny as well as sad, a symbol of good luck and prosperity used for millennia by communities across the world got tainted by racist european sc*m, the racist Christian Europeans could have used the cross as their symbol but no they used swastika instead. Now mere mention of swastika gives them ick. So sad. Good thing the hatred for swastika remained confined to white majority nations and is still widely used across the world.
Go to Japan, you’ll see the symbol being sold and used for religious purposes. It just means prosperity over there. Saw some being sold on charms and outside gift shops near old Buddhist temples that tourists visit. I can see why Finland politically would do this, and I also see why Finnish people would be upset as this has no correlation to the nazis. Can’t win everything…this is just one of them. Am actually curious on the history of this being used in the Finnish Air Force…didn’t know this!
Does anyone know what they do if they visit Germany? In the case of the flag I suppose they would just not fly them, but if the symbol is painted on their planes it might not be that simple
**Blue swastikas on white backgrounds that have featured on the flags of various Finnish Air Force units since 1918, which officials say is in no way connected to Nazi Germany, are being gradually phased out in an effort to enhance integration with Western allies following NATO membership.**
Finland’s Air Force, now part of NATO, is preparing to phase out swastikas which still fly on a handful of unit flags, largely to avoid awkwardness with their Western allies.
The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance.
It’s an ancient symbol and Finland’s air force began using it many years before the birth of Nazi Germany. Change has been underway for years. A swastika logo was quietly pulled off the Air Force Command’s unit emblem a few years ago.
But swastikas have remained on some Finnish air force flags, raising eyebrows among NATO allies, tourists and other foreigners who spot them at military events.
“We could have continued with this flag, but sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors. It may be wise to live with the times,” said Tomi Böhm, the new head of Karelia Air Wing air defence force, speaking to a state-run broadcaster.
# Bad look for a new NATO member
The Defence Forces, in an email to The Associated Press on Friday, said a plan to renew the air force unit flags was launched in 2023, the year Finland joined NATO, but said it was not linked to joining the alliance.
The aim, it said, was “to update the symbolism and emblems of the flags to better reflect the current identity of the Air Force.”
It was in reference to an article in the daily Helsingin Sanomat on Friday, which revealed that the reason behind the axing of the controversial emblem was a perception that the swastika has been an “embarrassing symbol in international contexts.”
The Air Force and the Finnish public generally had for years insisted the swastikas used in Finland’s air force “have nothing to do with the Nazi swastika,” said Teivo Teivanen, a professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, who this month had a book published whose Finnish title translates as “History of the Swastika.”
But now, following Finland’s integration with NATO, policymakers have decided “there’s now a need to get more integrated with the forces of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and France — countries where the swastika is clearly a negative symbol,” he added.
Finland’s air force adopted the swastika emblem in 1918 soon after country gained its independence after more than a century of Imperial Russian rule.
The Finnish air force soon after adopted a blue swastika on a white background as the national insignia on all its planes from 1918 to 1945. After the war, the imagery remained for decades on some Air Force unit flags and decorations as well as on the insignia of the Air Force Academy.
The Finnish air force stressed that its use of the symbol had no connection to Nazi Germany, although Finland entered into a reluctant alliance with the Third Reich during World War II.
After 1945, no more swastikas. Period. The symbol is permanently ruined.
Persisting with this symbol is supremely ignorant and in no way legitimately justifiable. It immediately conveys the public perception of far right racist extremist fascists. It just does.