The swastica good or evil?

About OWDs mention of the "myth" of the two types of Swastika (left and right handed), one depicting good and the other depicting evil.

i thought that was a load of rubbish too. But there is something to it.

According to various sources on the internet (none of which give the original source )
Friedrich Kroen's original swastika design had the legs facing left, which he believed was the standard method of it's representation in Buddhism. However Hitler specifically insisted on the mirror image, with the legs facing right.

Heres a quote from a Swastika History page:

Written by:

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According to some scholars, "swastika" is properly the name for the symbol running destroverse or clockwise , i. e. with its legs pointing to the left, while the"sauvastika" is actually the Indian name for the sinistroverse swastika, the one running counterclockwise, i. e. with its legs pointing to the right.

This hypothesis was advanced by J. G. Müller (Geschichte der amerikanishen Urreligionen , Basel: 1855). But Thomas Wilson, one of the main swastika scholars (The Swastika, the earliest known symbol, and its migrations , Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Report,1894), sees no justification for it.

If one accepts Müller's hypothesis, however, the design selected by Hitler as the symbol of the Nazi movement was not actually a swastika, but a sauvastika.

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i've been trying to find more information about the designer of the Nazi flag, Friedrich Kroen, without much success. i heard someone telling a story him about years ago, saying that he was a dentist who designed a number of incredibly powerful logos, symbols and typefaces. They also said that he ended up in a concentration camp himself because of his interest in abstract art(!).

about the confederate flag(and a tiny bit of the swastika):

I agree with many things people have been saying. I see the swastika and think of balance, but if i see the nazi flag i think of.. hitler. The civil war is not something that i feel there's much tension about at all, i used to live in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Even there, in the heart of the south, there were almost no people who were such die hard rednecks that they'd put up a confederate flag, or at least i didn't see many. There are actually some neo nazi's in my area, but they're a joke... the only thing they're good for is making fun of in my humble opinion.

For something regarding the confederate flag that happened to me: in one of my classes(french) i was talking to this girl i had just met, and noticed she had a confederate flag belt buckle and just kinda thought oh cool a southern girl, i used to live down in that area. So the prof comes up with this game we gotta play, a version of battle ship where the X and Y axis(instead of being numbers and letters) are different french phrases, so we practice pronouncing them while playing a game. So we gotta draw the ships in, and i make all mine ships that i thought were funny... i had the pope ship, with a cross on it and the pope doin a little polka dance, a pirate ship with a one eyed, peg legged, hook-handed pirate chillin on it, a speed boat with water skiers on the back, a sinking ship with a guy dressed up like a KKK member with a burning cross, and it was being sunk by a ship in the next square that had a buncha guys on it that looked like the kinda south american revolutionarys you see in movies, freedom fighters if you will. I thought it was kinda funny, it being a pun, the freedom fighters sinking the KKK. So i start playin the game with her, and aren't really hiding our papers so she sees my ships and says "oh you're for KKK too? white power man! [censored] those niggers" and my mind just kinda went blank and i looked over at my friend who had heard it and his eyes were wide open and mouths the words "what the [censored]!?" to me... so i say i'll be right back and go over and talk to him and we kinda have the conversation of: what a crazy bitch! are some people really that dumb? what the hell is she thinking!?!?

i never went back over to her and when she came and asked me what i was doing i claimed my great uncle was black, and that after hearing what she said i felt sick. Neither was true, but i wasn't too interested in speaking another word with her after that.

So, i see the confederate flag and i don't tay much apprention to it, but racism pisses me off fast. I'm intolerant of intolerant people in a way.

Next week in that class i was sittin next to the same guy i spoke of earlier, and we had a new set of words to play french battle ship with, and as i was drawing all sortsa ships i said "so... if i draw a nazi ship, and it's being sunk by a jew ship, and someone says 'wow you're a neo nazi too?' you'll help me kick their ass right?" and he laughed.... and she shot me the meanest look i think i've ever seen

i believe all people to be equal, and if you try to tell me differently get ready for one looooong argument.... but i've found that most people who try to tell me differently are too dull witted to carry out a decent argument with any valid points whatsoever. shrug.

please note: i don't intend to offend anyone with anything i've said, i'm just stating my personal and humble opinions/experiences and i apologize if you found them offensive.

Just to clear up any confusion, im not suggesting neo nazi's aren't really bad (I have met some people who claim to be neo nazi's, but claim to be egalatarian and not racist but ive never figured out what they are all about) or communists are nesscarily as bad as nazi's, Im just saying symbols of communism can represent a lot more horrible history then the swastica, and the stigma associated with them don't exist even though the horrible history is more global and recent.

its not the sign in itself its the intent behind it.

Just wanted to share a quick story. Friend (with dreads down to her ass - obvious hippy ) was at a local pub and some pindick army guy started calling her a racist nazi cause she had a "swatstika" on her arm. She was pisssssed off... with good reason - he was really worked up and wouldn't even have let her explain, even if she had tried - which neither off us had the energy to do. Just told one of the bouncers he was giving us a hard time... in our local where they know us by name... silly boy!
Still, he had heart behind his abuse - just an ignorant heart.

to all.

Seeing this thread revisited from another reminded me of THIS, a story about Hindu's wishing to reclaim the symbol as a sacred religious one.

Also THIS ARTICLE provides a brief explanation of its origins.

the only time it is a nazi symbol is when depicted on a red background, white disc with swastika in the middle, at a 45 degree angle. otherwise it is a symbol of good luck.

I can see why Hitler wanted to adopt it as the symbol for his fascist regime...

Also the nazi symbol spins anti-clockwise, wheras the good luck one spins clockwise, sometimes the nazi symbol is not on any background, but the way the arms point is always the same, (representing evil and chaos I think, can't really remember).

Mr Chutney, thanks for the link to the Hindu article, I wasn't aware that it was such an important everyday symbol in Hinduism.

Written by: Long_Time_Coming

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the only time it is a nazi symbol is when depicted on a red background, white disc with swastika in the middle, at a 45 degree angle. otherwise it is a symbol of good luck.

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That's a good and very consise way to put it.

consice, but not very accurate. the 45 degree angle is about the only true part of that statement

nazi swasticas could be sans background, in black, in white, in grey, and in some cases light blues and dark greens. depends on what they were applied to.

they were all 45 degrees and "spinning" all the same direction.

and they were not choosen to represent evil and choas. they were choosen to represent what all other swasticas before the third reich meant. the differentiation on which way a swastica spins was meaningless before then and is an artificial construct of modern times to account for its use by the nazi party and as anti-nazi propaganda.

it is just a simple pattern symbol who was unlucky enough to be choosen by one of the most notorious men in recent history to represent his empire. leave the poor thing alone and get on with just making sure the world is a better place.

In my country this symbol meen very bad times in the past.
It reminds me that "Comet Staff" with strips on both ends make shape like swastika whiles whirling, I dont like it.

:R

Wow... the importance people arbitrarily attach to symbols... It's quite strange.

I was doodling in a lecture 3 days ago, and a guy leant over and said "Why're you drawing a Satanist symbol? You've drawn it wrong..."

I was drawing an inverted triangle inside a triangle. He thought it was a Pentagram... I was actually thinking of the Illuminati when I did it...

The swastica, as long as you live outside the western perspective, is undoubtedly more associated with good than evil. For instance, there are more than 827 million Hindus in India alone and to anyone living around a Hindu community the swastica will be seen on an almost daily basis as a symbol of peace, prosperity, purity and good luck. The often repeated fallacy is that the Nazi swastica was rotating widdershins, while the Hindu one deosil. This is not true. The representation used by the Nazis was however the tantric (magic) form of the symbol, where it has been rotated through 45 degrees. As both the Hindus and Nazis regularly put the swastica on flags, so the pattern can be seen from both sides, the direction of rotation has never been of issue except for the most anal of religious fanatics.

And remember the mistake made by Jesus...

...don't get hung up on symbols.