Lozenge t-shirt

[dr 1 ace]

Hi Ed,
oh dear, the old swastika question, many of my fellow modellers here are annoyed that they mustn't show their Bf 109s or so with swastikas in public. It's a highly proplematic issue here. I for myself do not want to get political here, but I don't want to avoid this issue neither because I started it somehow.
I think, it could be a solution to tell a short story from my past. I was quite early fascinated by military modelling, looked at every war photo I could find and spend my pocket money for Airfix, Matchbox or Revell tanks and planes and painted them with any colors I had on hand. And of course I added these swastikas because I had seen them in the history books from my fathers book shelf. I was ten or so years old, of course I could read, I just didn't want to read that boring adult's stuff in these books, I only wanted to see the photos and build my models like these pictures looked.
My father didn't like my hobby very much but when he saw my little Messerschmitts and Stukas with swastikas, He didn't show me or grumbled. One Saturday he took me in his car and we went down to Dachau, which was about 150 km away from where we lived. He visited the former Concentration Camp and its museum there with me. "The men with the swastikas did this. And therefore I don't want any swatikas in our home", was one of the few sentences he talked when we were there. I can say that this was the most impressive, the most shocking history lession I ever had in my life. As a son, of course, I didn't always agree with my father, but in this very point I did and do it still today. I didn't stop modelling, but I never ever painted a swastika on my models.

WW1 modelling doesn't have these problems for luck (yes I know, there were many planes with personal swastika markings, on both sides of the front as a good luck symbol. But I don't want to build them because for me it never can become anything else but the symbol of the monsters that did what I saw in Dachau when I was a child). But I wouldn't wear these "Deutsches Reich 1914" shirts neither. I am quite happy with our modern democracy and that old Willie is gone forever...
Kind regards
Borsos

Well said Borsos and fully understood. !

My Dad was a US Navy vet 1938 to 1958, Served in WWII from  Pearl Harbor to Korean War, decorated separately in each for valor in Combat.  My two Uncles (mother's side) were in the 82nd Airborne and Patton's 3rd Army and embraced each other in Bastogne, both survived the war.  My best friend from College, his father (and like a second father to me) was a B-17 pilot with 35 missions over Germany and since he spoke fluent German was a part of debriefing German Officers after the war and personally saw the "camps".  I have also met many German WW II pilots who are disgusted with what the gangsters did to their country and its aftermath. So, I fully understand the sentiments on both sides of the issue, I just guess it will be another generation or 2 before the angst will dissipate and historical fact will not be suppressed.

ED

[lcarroll]

   "I think, it could be a solution to tell a short story from my past."

   And a very touching story it is Borsus. I believe it must have taken a lot of courage for you to share it with us, and I commend you for that! Above all we must never forget, but as Ed says, hopefully "the angst will dissipate."
My thanks for that,
Lance