Talk:Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century

Why the hell aren't the countries on this page alphabetized?
Support. Great idea -- go for it! JXM 01:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC) Done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.85.66 (talk) 05:00, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The title is guaranteed to bury this information
Why should this be limited to a period of time in the West? In the entire planet, the biggest controversy over swastika symbols is in the West. The history of the symbol's use in the late 1800's and early 1900's is very much a present day issue. Only in America are some buildings that contain swastika decoration named to the National Register of Historic Places while others are hacked up to remove architectural features because of the interpretation of a few. This destruction of historic buildings and ignorance of the history of the swastika will benefit from burying this information in a page that will not likely be accessed. Most people will stop at the main swastika page. I don't disagree that the main page had grown too large and disorganized. The lists of sites and controversies serve a purpose because each controversy has been up to now strictly a local issue. Wikipedia provides a great service in providing perhaps the only comprehensive high level view of this debate.
 * because people are obsessively collecting every instance of a swastika used in some heraldic device, emblem or building. The list is insanely detailed and tells us nothing beyond "the symbol was fashionable in Europe/North America ca. 1900-1930". If you are intrested in such a list, this page is for you, but beyond the general statement, it is simply not relevant to the swastika article. dab (𒁳) 14:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Suggest new page title
"Western use of the Swastika Prior to World War II"
 * Nazi use started in the early 1920s, years before the outbreak of WWII. Non-Nazi use curbed around 1930, not 1939. dab (𒁳) 14:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:BritishDruids.JPG
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Fair use rationale for Image:Arizona highway marker.jpg
Image:Arizona highway marker.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Arizona highway marker.jpg
Image:Arizona highway marker.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 04:31, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Poland
"Poland was highly inspired by Hinduism in 10th century as can be seen in the image of the Denarius of Mieszko I of Poland, 970-992 (Please note a swastika as well as AUM ॐ on the top of left side image."

How true is that ? I don't think so if this fragment is neutral at all. No proofs that Poland was highly inspired by Hinduism in 10th century and that "AUM ॐ" is on the Mieszko's denarius. Swastika was a Slavic symbol long before Slavs "touched" anythign related to Hinduistic culture...

--DumnyPolak (talk) 03:44, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Background
Whatever German scholarship had with the swastika has nothing to do with Indo-European cultures including European, as well as others, which have used the swastika for millennia. It's a poor conflation of some sort of cultish popularity and millennia-old usage of the symbol. PetersV     TALK 01:38, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Spain
In northern Morocco -the Riffi War in the 1920s- some Spaniard war biplanes showed a swastika on the fuselage. It was just a good-luck badge, most likely. Basque Nationalists used the swastika -the "straight-armed lauburu"- more or less up to the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), although the badge was into decline since some time earlier (to avoid misunderstandings with Nazism). In Iberian pottery the Swastika was a common motif.
 * "http://www.ctv.es/USERS/jolle/news16c.htm" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.142.175.22 (talk) 10:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

India
Is there a reason why India is included on this page? Bevo74 (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't. I've removed the section since the comprehensive Swastika article includes that information, not to mention that India isn't even western, nor is the info regarding the early 20th century. - M0rphzone (talk) 06:15, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050223191219/http://www.idn.org.pl:80/medykon/tatry/pomnik.htm to http://www.idn.org.pl/medykon/tatry/pomnik.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070715203557/http://www.merit.edu/~jimmoran/detphot/penobscot.html to http://www.merit.edu/~jimmoran/detphot/penobscot.html

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Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 17:29, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101229160418/http://www.carlsberggroup.com/Experience/Footprints/Valby/Pages/TheElephantTower.aspx to http://www.carlsberggroup.com/Experience/Footprints/Valby/Pages/TheElephantTower.aspx
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070211093158/http://www.thckk.org:80/buffum-tool-co-history.html to http://www.thckk.org/buffum-tool-co-history.html

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Native American decree?
I cannot find any source anywhere for this claim, which has had a "reference needed" tag for a while:
 * Shortly after the beginning of World War II, several Native American tribes (the Navajo, Apache, Tohono O'odham, and Hopi) published a decree[citation needed] stating that they would no longer use the swastika in their artwork.

There is a quote, allegedly from the decree, in the article but it has no source. Can anybody help? (Be careful: There are many references online to this decree that are based only on this article, not anything else.) - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If we can't find a source, I'm going to remove it in a few days. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:39, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, I've removed it. Perhaps that will galvanize somebody to find a source that has eluded me. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 12:54, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

This article is a real mess
This article is a real mess - especially the U.S. section, which has tons of poorly organized chunks of material, of varying detail and importance, that makes it very hard for a reader to understand. I just trimmed four paragraphs of history about a single minor church and its architect (moving the material to the article about the church, in case it's needed there), but much more tightening and trimming is needed. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:52, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Whole article is misleading and moronic.
Whole article is written focusing on "swastika", as if hitler and nazis used the word swastika. In reality, hitler, who finalized the nazi symbol, never used the word "swastika" in his whole life. He never even knew the word "swastika". Nazis hardly ever used that word. They used the word hakenkreuz, which translates as "hooked cross". Its a cross' and hitler designed it, and called it so in german, because he was german, and was talking, writing in german. The third reich was inheritor of first reich.

Both the reiches were christian empires and used different types of crosses as their symbol. Which part of this is too complicated for wikipedians? Why is wikipedia committed to idiocy, and spreading misleading information in the whole anglophone world? TBC, the moronic part is where wikipedia presents the info as if nazis always used the word "swastika". Not so. Germans had the word "hakenkreuz" decades before english language had the word swastika. Hakenkreuz has nothing to do with swastika. The symbol itself was first invented, introduced in antisemitic german nationalist circles by freidrich ludwig jahn in 1810 by joining four "F"s at the base.

If you guys cannot fix the article, just delete it. Dont spread misimformation. 2409:4066:8F:F33:C522:5280:491F:5081 (talk) 02:07, 15 November 2018 (UTC)
 * This is old but just for the record:
 * Hitler did not "finalise the swastika", he was more than 1,000 years too late for that.
 * strange as it may seem, Hitler spoke German, not English. The word "swastika" hadn't entered German, whereas it had been used in English since before he was born. So of course he used the German word Hakenkreuz ["hooked cross"]. But this is en.wikipedia so we WP:use english: the word does not exist in English and is only used in this type of philological discussion.
 * Hitler did not design it: again he was more than 1,000 years too late.
 * Some Christians adopted a form of a cross from the Greek Gammadion, again long before Hitler.
 * The Nazi's claim to be the inheritors of the first Reich (Holy Roman Empire) was just that, a claim.
 * The only difference between Hakenkreuz and Swastika is that the first is a German word, the second a Sanskrit and English word. They are both names for the same symbol, irrespective of its 'facing' or tilt.
 * No conspiracy or incompetence, just inconvenient facts. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:36, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Alabama, Alaska, and New Mexico examples
The Jefferson County Courthouse (Birmingham, Alabama), built around 1929, is adorned with swastikas. Per Swastikas on the JeffCo Courthouse have more to do with prosperity than Hitler, May 25, 2012, at AL.com.

From working on NRHP-listed Elephant Butte Historic District and Elephant Butte Dam topics in New Mexico, I came across interesting Peter E. Kern and Kern Place article sections, which include photo of a swastika-adorned, very unusual gateway to the Kern Place residential area, involving Toltec indians somehow, which was built in 1916 and survived to 1954. Perhaps something about this could be added to Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century?

Peter E. Kern includes sourced coverage of other swastika usage, including for the Castle Kern in Skagway(?), Alaska, built in 1907, burned in 1912, maybe the "good luck omen" nature of swastikas didn't work so well.

By the way, thank you to Montanabw who previously developed in this list-article about the swastika on the entryway of the Montana Club, and who advised me about the above. --Doncram (talk) 17:09, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Other Languages
The other languages section leads to an article in Portuguese about a building in Portugal that has nothing to do with this article. 195.37.234.78 (talk) 17:53, 1 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Weird - trying to edit those links, I can't find the Portuguese link at all, just the Turkish one. Yet it appears on the article. I am baffled. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:24, 2 December 2022 (UTC)


 * The cross-language info is now stored on Wikidata. When it was previously stored in individual Wikipedia articles, trying to make inter-language links mutually consistent was sometimes a nightmare... AnonMoos (talk) 15:33, 3 December 2022 (UTC)


 * P.S. There's actually a link to https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityPage/Q7988550 on the article, though it might not be easy to spot and make use of unless you already know about Wikidata. AnonMoos (talk) 15:37, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

There’s a Swastika in Mississippi too In the Town of Louisville with the strand theater 146.12.244.54 (talk) 00:07, 17 July 2023 (UTC)