Thursday, Sept. 15, 2011
THEN: On Sept. 15, 1935, Adolf Hitler declares the Nazi flag, containing a swastika symbol, to be Germany’s new national flag. The red flag, with a white circle in the middle containing a black swastika, came to represent Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany and anti-Semitism. The swastika is first appropriated by Hitler when he works as the head of the propaganda department of the National Socialist Party in 1920. Prior to Hitler using it, the symbol is part of cultures around the world for millennia and has been found on many ancient artifacts, including in the West. In Asia, the symbol can be seen in temples; many Buddha statues often have a swastika on their chest. In more modern times, in 1925 Coca Cola adopted the symbol in one of its promotional campaigns. NOW: Today, with Eastern culture and belief systems becoming more popular in the West, the swastika symbol has in turn become more accepted, although in the Western world specifically, it is still considered to represent Nazism. After the Second World War, the symbol was banned in Germany and prohibited under German law. However, as a sign that things are changing, in 2004, Germany’s higher court ruled that displaying the swastika by the Chinese meditation discipline Falun Gong, whose symbol contains the swastika symbol, is legal in Germany.
