Reversed Swastika on M-3 Flak helmet

[cricket]

Hello, I have posted this on a couple other forums and thought I would see what you guys thought. I have a M-3 flak helmet that has german kill flags painted on it. Typical red rectangle with white circle in center containing the swatstika. However the swastika is painted counterclockwise and strait up and down, no 45 degree tilt. The paint on this helmet looks pretty nice, not somthing someone just took a marker to. Question is have any of you seen photos or have anything in your collections that show a reversed swastika? How common is this? I will try and get photos of this helmet up ASAP, but don't have the capability to post photos yet.

 

cricket

[dustin]

pictures would help greatly and i bet you would get sometype of answer to your question. regards

[cricket]

I agree pics would be nice. As soon as I get the time I'll try to get some pictures up and running. I recently had my computer crash on me and lost everything, I'm still trying to sort out a lot of the bugs. For some reason my pc is not recognizing the software that came with my digital cam?? I'm fairly computer illiterate so it might be a while.

 

cricket

[Brig]

indeed. the reverse swastika is one of the ways it was depicted long before the Nazis adopted the symbol. Native Americans used it, as did farmers (Amish?) as a sign of good luck, they'd paint it on their barns. I have a piece in my collection, a pin of an arrow with a reverse not angled swastika that people thought might be Boy Scouts. But it is not. The new theory someone suggested that I'm looking into is it may have been a piece for the American Nazi Party of the 1930s, who I'm told also used reverse swastikas.

 

there's no reason to think that a GI would not paint a backwards swastika, perhaps as an insult, perhaps to not promote Nazism, perhaps because he was confused as to how it should go. I've seen many, many people draw them backwards thinking it was the correct way to display it in association with the Nazis