The end of a bulky symbol for a new NATO member. The Finnish Air Force has announced its intention to get rid of its Svastikas, a symbol similar to Nazi swastika, used as emblems since 1918.
“We could have continued using this flag, but sometimes delicate situations with foreign visitors can occur. It can be advisable to live with their time,” said Colonel Tomi Böhm, a new Chief of Carélie Air Squadron, on Thursday, August 28, on the Finnish public television channel and Le.
A renewal of the Air Force flags began in 2023, the year of Finland’s membership in NATO, as Associated Press learned from the institution.
With the objective of “updating the symbolism and the emblems of the flags to better reflect the current identity of the Air Force.”
“It is necessary to integrate more”
This change has been in force for several years, when the Svastika had been removed from the flag of the Air Force Command Unit. Some units still show this symbol, associated since the 1930s with Nazi tyranny since the 1930s.
According to Teivainen, professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, cited by Associated Press, the flags in question were introduced in the 1950s and are now wooded by four units of the Air Force. According to the historian, the Air Force insists that the swastika used in the Finnish Air Force “have nothing to do with the Nazi swastika.”
But, after Finland’s entry into NATO, the public authorities decided “that it was now necessary to integrate more in the forces of countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and France, countries where the swastika is clearly a negative symbol.”
Man at the origin of the symbol near the Nazis
The use of Svastika in the Finnish army dates back to 1918 and had decided in tribute to the Swedish position Eric von Rosen, who had donated the first Finnish military plane and that carried this symbol as a personal emblem.
Little by little, from 1918 to 1945, the Air Force adopted the symbol in its planes, even after the war. This story precedes Nazi Germany, but is necessarily associated with it, especially because the count was the brother -in -law of Hermann Göring, Aviation Minister of the Reich and main member of the Nazi administration.
Now, all Finnish Air Force units will use the same symbol: a golden eagle on a blue background.
Source: BFM TV
