Hasted crosses on flags: Finland’s Air Force abolish flags

Finland wants to sort out the flags of his Air Force who wear a swastika symbol. As the Air Force Command of the German Press Agency announced, this should happen “in the near future”.

Previously, the Finnish broadcaster Yle had reported that the swastika flags should be abolished as part of a reform. Accordingly, Air Force Colonel Tomi Böhm said that “sometimes unpleasant situations with foreign visitors” were created. It makes sense to go over time, said Böhm to Yle.

The Finnish Air Force was founded in 1918. The Swedish aristocrat Eric of Rosen gave the armed forces their first plane and decorated it with his symbol of luck: the swastika. Since then, all Finnish military aircraft have carried the swastika – before the National Socialists of the swastika seized as a sign.

In 1945 the symbol on the Finnish aircraft was replaced by a new one, but it was only in 2017 that the swastika was removed from the emblem of the Finnish Air Force Command. And to this day it can still be seen on some historical flags of the command that are swiveled at parades, among other things.

This always led to astonishment to trouble with international visitors. The English newspaper “The Telegraph” quoted the historian Teivo Teivainen, who reported an incident with members of the German Air Force in 2021. According to this, the German soldiers of a ceremony in Lapland have stayed away after they found out that swastika flags should be displayed there.

Even though Finland, according to historian Teivainen, has always denied a connection of his swastika flags with the German National Socialists, it is noteworthy that the Swedish donor Eric of Rosen was considered a Nazi sympathizant in the 1930s and was confessed with Hermann Göring.