Charlie P.

My wife has been particularly grumpy concerning a GP Big Stik 40 I purchased this week. Last night she asked me if I wouldn't remove the iron crosses and replace them with some other symbols. Turns out she makes no distinction between the iron cross and the swastika; thinking both are expressions of evil, Hitler, low-life bikers, mother-stabbers and father-rapers, etc.

Well, I went to work and hunted up some info on the German Crosses. Turns out what I always called a Maltese cross is in fact a cross pattée. The crosses on my Big Stik are the cross formée. The later WWI German Cross (like on the Dr 1) are the Greek Cross. The Maltese Cross actually is the one used on the Pour le Mérite medal - "v" shaped ends forming an eight pointed cross.

I then tried to explain to Herself that the iron cross is the cross formée, symbol used by the Teutonic Knights during the Crusades and is a Christian symbol. Her response "Not any more." I wonder how many other "outsiders" are disturbed by these insignias on our RC aircraft?

In my research I also came across a site that allows downloading a wide selection of "iron crosses". Great if you are set up to print your own decals.
http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/maltesecrosses.html

The crosses are staying, but the plane may have to be hangared out in the garage.

visioneer_one

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I have a .40-sized ME-109 ARF. It came with cross decals (don't know which ones) for the wings, but no swastika decals. I ordered up a batch from Major Decals and added them in the scale locations on the tail.

I get a few comments from onlookers every once in a while, but that's all.

MinnFlyer

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The events of history, no matter how unpleasent, are real. If we start by taking scale insignia off of our models where do we end? By removing it from text books? No. No matter how heinous the crime, it is history.

Now if someone were to build a newer type plane, like a Cessna, or a non-scale plane and put swastikas on it, I just might have to turn on my transmitter when he's flying. :devious:

beardking

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I have wondered this myself a few times. I personally like a lot of the German aircraft from WWII and when I get to the point of actually building them I can't see it being right to remove any of the symbols from them just to appease close minded people that refuse to believe that history is one way and current life is another. Of course, I've been told by MANY people that I'm very abrasive, so I'm not sure I'd go by my opinion.

Taildrager-inactive

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Why is it we seem more obsessed with a swastika than a rising sun. Wasn't it Japan that dealt the first blow to the USA. I guess Hitler was more evil than the emperor.

Deadeye

Keep the symbols - lose the wife! Just kidding, but you may try to explain to her what Minnflyer said. Even the Christian cross is offensive to some. In fact there isn't a heck of a lot one can do/reproduce/say/act out/etc, without ticking off someone.

It's what is in the heart that matters.

beardking

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Taildragger, that was actually my first thought when I read this too. It seems like people find 1 or 2 common symbols and just latch onto them to hate them. Just like the rebel flag. I know that there is nothing but bad blood toward that flag, but it's also a part of history. I'm not condoning what it stood for, or what most people who still fly it stand for, but nonetheless, it's a part of history.

JimTrainor

When your wife says "not any more" I think she is correct. The symbol of the Iron Cross was banned in Germany post WWII.

I found this site, explaining that:
http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/neo-nazi_iron-cross.asp

It evoked that image in my mind, so I got the "modern" trim scheme.

On a scale model, yeah, accurate.

cwat212

I put American symbols on my Corsair. I am sure they would offend many people in this world AND in the UNITED STATES.

No matter which way you go, someone will find something they find offensive.

FLYBOY

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I wouldn't worry about it. Ask her if she likes the peace sign. It has been explained to me that it started out as an inverted cross with the arms broken off. Don't know for sure, but sure looks like it.

lnorris

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I'm a firm believer that some people just need to be offended. They don't want to see or hear things because they don't want to think about it. But not to think about it is to forget. And we all know what happens when you forget history.

MinnFlyer

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I like the way you think! LOL

Unstable

I dont know about you but I am tired of people trying to rewrite,
censor, and hide history.

I am tired of people changing the words of songs and poems to make them more "PC" I am tired of people editing and choping up films and pictures so they don't "offend" anyone. I would like to tell you want I want to do to those "PC" morons but this is a family show...

yes the swastika became a symbol of hate and evil, but does that mean it should be hidden, banned.

hell no.. we should display it openly for what it has become and what it was so that we may learn from it and never forget what it was used for.

you can't hide from history, it WILL come back and get you the moment you think you are safe.

Tattoo

Thanks for the website link Charlie P. I'm always looking for stuff like that! Put whatever the heck you want on your plane. It's your plane. Geeze. With my heritage, if I would have been living in Europe during the war, I would have been a prime target for the concentration camps. My best friend is a Kraut. I'll put iron crosses or swastikas on my planes (which do) if i feel like it. If someone doesn't like it...they can look at someone else's planes. Politically correct nonsense makes me sick. I also LOVE the MS combat flight simulators...but they took all the swastikas off the German planes in the new CFS-3 edition. Pathetic. I didn't buy it.

GrnBrt

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Well I do hope your Wife never goes to the Orient as the Swaztika is also a Buddhist symbol, but Hitler took it and reversed it. When I first got to 'Nam I about flipped when I saw large ones on top of houses and that's when tho old Sarge explained it to me. I also hate this PC gargage and some woman one year really got very upset when she saw my Zero sitting on the table during our annual mall show, just told her in a very polite way to get over it as the war has been over for a very long time!

Roby

I have had several scale German WW2 aircraft over many years.
Only once or twice have I been approached because of the
markings.

I guess the people who approached me felt offended .

Too bad ! Like it pr not, it's world history. Maybe every once
and a while we SHOULD be reminded................that way we
may not forget so easily what transpired

Regards
Roby

beardking

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You know, I'm happy to see that even though there have been 16 (now 17) responses to this thread this morning, not 1 person has come on here and screamed and hollered (yes, I'm a redneck) or whined about how offensive we are for standing up and admitting that we are smart enough to realize that a symbol is just that, a symbol. To me a symbol doesn't mean anymore than you make it out to be. If you want a symbol to be a bad thing, then for you it will be. But, the person next to you may think it's a good thing, so if people are so worried about being offensive, why don't they look out for the people THEY may be offending. Again, just my opinion. Hope I don't offend.

scottrc

I have been building scale plastic models which I have entered in competitions for many years. Over the years, I have met many people who have lived through the War years, some through the Holocaust, some Japanese who were interned in the US, some who were POWs by the Japanese. None of these people were never offended by the markings on my models. These were models of both axis and allied machines of war. Although these models brought back devastating memories, they always gave words of encouragement for me and about my work.

Now that this generation is departing, it seems that their descendants are the ones that want to erase all symbolism that they deem "bad".

Two years ago I entered a show at a school where I had the CSS Alabama displayed and was asked to remove the "Rebel" flag from the mainmast because the school had a ban on this sort of symbolism.
I informed the school, who I questioned how it taught history, that it was not a Rebel flag, but the Union Commissioning Jack that show that the vessel was registered under the English Commonwealth and was a commissioned vessel under the confederation of the United States. This vessel, and the flag, in no way, evoked slavery or bigotry.

Children are now using these symbols for other activities of violence and relating them to the Confederation or the Nazis.
This is happening because we are not teaching them the truth in our schools, instead we are hiding it and they are getting the from messages from television and the media.

It seems we as modelers, are a last link to our youth, and must stick up to society against censorship. I agree, some people need to be offended, some infact deserve it because they are looking for the publicity.

Bruno Stachel

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I have a small collection of Marklin HO trains. Marklin is a German manufacturer of mostly German prototype toy trains. I don't own any models of Nazi era equipment, but I have catalogs with pictures of them. Due to the swastika being banned in Germany, Marklin, as well as other manufacturers have a substitue symbol. Basically, the legs of the swastika are connected so the symbol appears as 4 diamonds conjoined to form one larger diamond. I guess that could be a compromise symbol for RC models. But if you are a stickler for scale accuracy, it's pretty bad.

Dzlstunter

The swastika also shows up in Aryan symbols still found in India and in Native American sources (these usages predate the Nazis by a bunch). I see absolutely no reason to forgo the use of iron crosses or swastikas if one is modeling a full-scale plane. On the other hand, if you are putting them on a sport plane you run the risk of being perceived as approving the ideology with which they are still most associated. Deal with it. As an alternative, most German war planes were also used by other countries, and if you really want to avoid the crosses (twisted or otherwise) you can model some of those color schemes (and get a distinctive model to boot). Dzl

adrian-RCU

lets cut the cr@#@p and keep our beautiful planes no matter what as scale as possible.

cwat212

There used to be a neighborhood here in Tampa on the south side of town named Swastika. It was just changed a couple years ago.

I think the swastika was originally a sign of good luck!!!!

beardking

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cwat212, here in Texas we have a wonderfully politically correct town named White Settlement. I'd LOVE to hear the story on how that name came about.

cwat212

beardking - too funny.

remember this story?

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecov...02/3/11/161757

Charlie P.

Yes, and the Navajo use it, too. I saw somewhere that it is the easiest way to connect nine points, but forget why that is significant. Now if you want to talk evil done under a flag, lets talk U.S./British American colonials and the Native Americans. Anyway, I am very pleased with the discussion as it progresses. I am going to print this out and talk it over with my wife. She is a school teacher (music), and has an adamant anti-war opinion. (But she got each of us a flag to hook to our cars both times we went to war with Iraq and after 9/11 - go figure). We're both very much into U.S. and world history, but I lean towards those times of battle ('cause that's where the interesting stuff occurs).

I drag her to every memorial/museum/restoration/recreation I come across. I generally get a lot of eye rolling and questions like: "Why do you find this so interesting? It's awful." I tell her: "Because I honor those that lost their lives, youth and innocence so I could have mine."

After the fifth annual trip to Rhinebeck Aerodrome her protestations were louder than the LeRhone rotary engines so I quit making my pilgrimages there - out of consideration to the other patrons. Best visit I ever had there it rained hard all day and the place was deserted. I went from hangar to hangar checking out planes. A greasy mechanic in one of the sheds struck up a conversation with me and showed us around some of the hidden treasures (my Grandpa worked on the Thomas-Morse Scouts made in Ithaca, NY and I knew they had one there). He even set my wife in a Sopwith Pup so I could take her picture. It was Cole Palen.

On a related note: My wife's father was born in Germany in 1912 and the family moved to the U.S. about that time. I'm sure ancestral heritage was not encouraged or spoken of in the household for the duration of the next few wars and thereafter. That was back when citizens were Americans and not XXXX-Americans (insert your cultural preferance here) and you kept your mouth shut and assimilated.