August 31, 2023 • 54 mins
Robert is joined again by Chelsey Weber-Smith to continue to discuss the secret history of the Swastika.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
H what wasn't my Sophie, Sophie, I'm just trying. I'm
trying to recapture that what's boiling my pig Anus's energy?
That I still like.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The class what's cracking my peppers? That's still one of
my favorite ones you've ever done. I know it's been
four years.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Again never again, fine, just going to make it more
and more off putting. You know, you know, what's trafficking
my children?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That kind of stuff just going to be a problem us.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah. Uh well, this is Behind the Bastards podcast Worse
People tell you all about them? Uh and today getting
behind really behind the Nazis by getting behind the Swastika
with Chelsea Weber Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Oh, this has been so interesting so far, and I
just have no idea really where it's going. So thanks
for having me here and taking me on this journey.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thank you for being here. Chelsea Weber Smith, whose podcast
American Hysteria is pretty cool and people should check out Chelsea.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes you ready, I'm ready, are ready?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And then a bunch of like anyway, I don't know
why I hate that.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's who we are now.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's like so our uh uh well, I probably shouldn't
tell that story. But I come across periodically old pieces
of like Nazi paraphernalia. It's a it's a hazard of
the job. And there's definitely been a few times when
I've been like, oh, that would be an interesting like
that book would be interesting to have because of you know,
(01:47):
this person who signed it, and then like, no, I
don't need that in my house. What am I? What
am I doing? You're you're you're you don't you don't
want to.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Have this, Robert, this haunted ass book.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, this haunted ass Nazi book. I was given through
someone else, a like family heirloom that was an old
Hitler youth dagger, and I had no idea what to
do with it, so I just kind of like put
it in my trash pile out in the yard and
it's just slowly decaying, which I think is the right
thing to do with a Hitler youth dagger.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Was that the one that was mailed to the corporate office?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. We get all sorts
of weird stuff. So in the late nineteen twenties and
early nineteen thirties you might have heard about this. The
Nazis rise to power, they solidify their grip on power,
you know, and while sort of the while the Nazis
are kind of like moving up in their inevitable kind
(02:40):
of like path towards taking control of the German government.
There's all sorts of fighting in the street. You know.
You got your old timey anti fascists, both kind of
social democrats and communists, you know, duking it out with
the Nazis in the streets. And these street fights, these
big brawls, these murders and assassinations are kind of a
regular call of fascination in the world media, right, Like,
(03:02):
they get a lot of attention in the American newspapers
in particular, and so they start sending over reporters to
cover all of this unrest in Weimar, Germany. In nineteen
twenty seven, an American journalist from Town and Country magazine
traveled to Austria to report on fighting between local social
democrats and Nazi aligned fascists. Being a dumb American, this person,
(03:24):
she did not worry much about the fact that she
had gone to Austria in nineteen twenty seven with her
girls club ring which bore a swastika on it.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
So she's gotlub Yeah, she's.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like showing up to like embed with the social democrat
like street fighting gangs, and she's got a swastika ring,
and like one of these guys has to take her
aside and be like, I can't be wearing that here,
Like I know you don't mean it, but you gotta
take that thing off.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
God, that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Oh, it's amazing. Well, history is so rich.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
History is rich. But also there have always been you know,
as someone who's done conflict reporting, I know a lot
of great journalists, a lot of people I respect a lot,
but the majority of journalists who do that kind of
work are always like shitheads, right, and like it is
a shitheaded thing to like go to travel to like
report on the fighting between these Nazis and these other
(04:27):
groups and not be like should I bring my swastika ring?
Like maybe I should leave this at You did not
do that much research.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, you didn't possess the very most basic knowledge that
you would need to report for newspaper off those events.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It is nineteen twenty seven, you had some time.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Wow, Yeah, sloppy, sloppy.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Six years later, in nineteen thirty three, Hitler had been
made Chancellor of Germany. This obviously supercharged international resistance to
the regime, and American anti fascists held a rally in
New York City to protest the newly minted dictator. One
journalist with The New Yorker showed up to cover the
event and realized very quickly that his pocket watch, which
wasngraved with a swastika, might be a bad thing to
(05:11):
have out on the street with it. Right, Like, really again,
but it does kind of show I'm making fun of
these people, and I think they should be. But it
does show you, like how banal it was seen as,
where like somebody might show up and be like, oh, fuck,
I can't have this thing on me. I didn't realize
this would be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Starting in the
(05:33):
early thirties, American use of the swastika began to decline,
and this was matched throughout much of the Western world.
For reasons I probably don't need to spend too much
time on, right, not not surprising that it does start
to decline in its kind of anadyne usage. In Nazi Germany,
the new regime actually encouraged this at first. The ubiquity
(05:55):
of the symbol had been good for them right in
the early years when they're rising to power. It's free
pr but now they're in power, and the hundreds of
men have died fighting under the swastikab so it has
become this kind of holy symbol of sacrifice. And once
they're in power, the Nazis kind of find it horrifying
that some company might use it to sell coffee. In
nineteen thirty three, Joseph Gerbels announced the Law for Protection
(06:18):
of National Symbols. Quote. If the symbol is used on
an object or in connection with it, it may only
be used if the object itself has an interrelation to
the symbol. The use of symbols for publicity purposes is
in any case forbidden. So basically this law means you
can't use a swastika to sell a cigar or whatever,
right unless it's like you're doing a fundraiser for the
(06:39):
Nazi Party, then you can probably get away with it.
For the Nazis, the swastika then had come full circle
from a symbol that they co opted to mainstream their
image to a sacred object restricted from commercial use unless
that commercial use was Nazi in origin. This created problems
for a number of people, particularly people outside of Nazi
(06:59):
Germany and Some of those people were Canadians who lived
in the quaint northern Ontario town of Swastika, named after Yeah,
just picking up the news one morning, like you know,
you're living out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you
don't check in for a while, and then like you
see that like Hitler's taking power in Germany and you
(07:20):
look at the banner behind him, like, oh, fuck God,
this is going to be a problem for us. Swastikers
now Swastika Ontario woo. Swastika Ontario was named after the
Swastika gold mines staked in nineteen oh seven. The town
name was inspired by the Sanskrit symbol, not the other thing.
(07:44):
Several mines soon came to dot the boomtown, and all
of them were kind of Swastika themed. There was the
Swastika mine. There was also the Lucky Cross mine. In
nineteen forty, as the war breaks out, members of Swastika
or citizens of Swastika started to feel preture to change
the town name. There are a couple of articles at
the time where like people in town are like, we're
(08:05):
not changing the name. They don't get to take it
from us, Like this has been our name longer than
they've been using it, you know. But eventually the provincial
government overrules them and they send like I don't know,
mounties or whatever to take the swastika sign outside of
town and replace it with one that says Winston.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Winston doesn't have the same ring to it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
No, no, no, no. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
People should have owned like an NFL team with that energy.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Although it does make me think what if Hitler had
adopted as a symbol just a man named Winston or
maybe a carton of Winston cigarettes. You know, it is different.
World War Two. Yeah, a lot of Americans and Camels
writing to Nurember or to a fucking Normandy. So yeah,
(08:53):
they changed the town. The provincial government tries to change
the town name to Winston, and the Swastikas are so
adamant that, like, we're not going to change our town name.
They tear down the Winston sign and they put up
their own news sign for Swastika, telling reporters still with Hitler,
we came up with our name first.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Hey, I appreciate the dedication.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
You know, this is where things g Yeah, I mean,
you know they're not wrong, right, like because it's not
their fault, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Like that might not be the right hill to die on.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I wouldn't. This is not the hill I would pick
to die on. Just my little town in Ontario has
the name, but it makes me think. So, Like, the
first big piece of like conflict reporting I did was
after the Botoclon massacre in two thousand and fifteen, when
Isis murdered dozens and dozens of people in France at
(09:50):
that like mass shooting type deal. I did this article
where I went through like eight or nine hundred pages
of like Isis propaganda and like wrote this thing about
their weird magazine. But like I remember, I spent like
two or three days just kind of like stuck in
my little office writing this thing, and then I go
out to like do laundry at the laundromat near my house,
which was the Isis laundromat. So I just remember like
(10:12):
looking up at it and being like, that's probably gonna
be a problem for you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Man in the similar vein, we have a dry cleaner
that is just called Q cute.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not on you.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
But I know if we did it first, they haven't
changed it.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
There is another funny story about this of Swastika Mountain
in southern Oregon. Uh Now, Oregon has a famously bad
Nazi problem, so you might assume probably a dark.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
History mountain is a combination of words.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Swastika Mountain in Oregon. Yeah, in Oregon. But no, it
was it was again, it predates the use of that.
It was just somebody, some guy decided call it Swastika Mountain.
It got renamed like a couple of years ago. It
was not all that law ago that that the state
was like, you probably shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Have this, Like what year are we talking? Like a
couple of.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Years ago, Like not all that long ago that mountain
got renamed northwesterners. It wasn't a big it's not like
a major mountain, right, It's not like hood. It's not
one of your money mountains, you know. I also, I
can remember there's this farmhouse I used to spend a
lot of time in pretty old farmhouse outside of about
an hour and a half outside of Reading, in the
middle of fucking nowhere, north central California, that the original
(11:30):
owner had burnt into the wooden roof all of the
different cattle brands from different ranches in the area, and
one of them is a fucking swastika, and it was
one of knowing the area. Like I actually knew a
guy who had been in the Hitler youth as a
kid out there, although he was not a Nazi anymore.
You know, the warned when he was fourteen. It's not
really on him, but like seeing that and being like
(11:53):
just knowing the history. This could just be a thing
that people had way back in the day before the Nazis,
or it could be a Nazi ranch like rural California,
equally likely.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I looked it up. It's August twenty twenty two, the
Open Geographic Nemes Board confirmed that it would no longer
be called swastikamountains.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We did it, guys, We did it, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They almost died on that hill.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, yeah, God bless Oregon. Finally, Yeah, making progress. Everybody
really got that knocked out before the election.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But that's like, it's so fascinating that you can look
at that now and actually truly not know. I mean,
you can honestly know if you have a dividing line
of time, but with these certain like products, you don't
have like such a definitive line that happens where you're like,
this is not Nazi shit, this is Nazi Nazi shit,
you know, and we can say that without any doubt.
(12:51):
It's just I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, pretty cool stuff. So the use of the swastika
as a fashion icon had started to fade, albeit uneven,
by the end of the nineteen thirties, as this segment
from a ride up in Slate makes clear. One incident
in nineteen thirty six made that clear swastika motif receives
cold reception. Read a small headline in Women's Wear Daily
in nineteen thirty six, buttons crusted with swastika shown by
(13:15):
one couture house stirred up some comment among an audience
of New York buyers. The editors wrote, no sales of
this particular model are reported. Although no reason for this
chile response was given, it might be due to the
fact that many important New York department stores were owned
or founded by Jews, including b Altman, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman,
Sax Fifth Avenue, and Macy's. Although the Women's Wear Daily
(13:36):
article left the designer of these buttons anonymous, Vogue also
reported on a fashion show featuring swastika buttons, identifying the
designer as Marcel rochas a well known French courtier. Unlike
Women's wear daily, Vogue found the use of the swastika
to be amusing rather than disturbing.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Now eslately telling me it wasn't co Kerschanel.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
There's a pretty I mean, like Coco. There's a pretty
good chance that Vogue had no problem at the swastika
because the people running it were pretty fucking racist and
kind of fans of the Nazis. They, along with many
other publications, were cautiously positive about Hitler in the lead
up to the war years. That same year, they ran
a spread showing the home decors of Hitler in his
(14:17):
mountain hideaway, including a prominent swastika cushion on his couch.
Slat says that this was an example of them humanizing
Hitler and trying to reinforce the domestic feel of the symbol.
They did also include a profile on British Prime Minister
Anthony Eden's house at the same time, so I don't know.
The article goes on. As late as nineteen thirty seven,
Good Housekeeping recommended creating a swastika out of cashews as
(14:38):
a cliver cake decoration. I know that's what I'm doing
my next birthday. Cashw swastika. Baby, Wow, you got a
nut allergy. That's a double problem right there.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, so I wonder if your local grocery store would
go ahead and pop one in frosting.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh, just going there, try, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Just going through my thirty seven issues of a Good
Housekeeping and uh yeah, they recommended this. Can you do
this cave for me?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This is what I want.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But in nineteen forty, the Boy Scouts finally decided they'd
had enough of the hook cross. At that year's jamboree
in Santiago, Chile, a vote was taken to abandon the
swastika due to the fact that Boy Scouts and Scout
leaders had been heckled and pelted with shit while marching
through streets with swastikas on their uniform And again, hard
to blame anyone in nineteen forty for seeing a bunch
(15:32):
of dudes in military style uniforms with white swastika. Isn't
going I'm gonna throw some stuff at those kids.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's two late boys. You gotta give up the symbol.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Might have to fuck up a Boy Scout over this.
The Boy Scout order of the white swastika was, of course,
never sacred, and neither was really the town name of Swastika, Ontario.
But all of this does create a very serious problem
for the Navajo, the Papago, the Pa and the Hope people,
all of whom had used the swastika or the the
(16:06):
whirling log in various works of religious significance since time immemorial. Right,
this is a religious symbol for them. It is not
as simple as just oh, this weird decoration or name
that we used is problematic. Now we got to change it,
right Like, this is a thing that is a part
of religious observances, you know. But after the Nazi invasion
(16:27):
of France, representatives from each of these tribes, the Navajo,
the Papago, the Apache, and the Hope sign a proclamation
on the whirling log symbol because the above ornament, which
has been a symbol of friendship among our forefathers for
many centuries, has been desecrated recently by another nation of peoples. Therefore,
it is resolved that henceforth, from this date and forevermore,
(16:48):
our tribes renounced the use of the emblem commonly known
today as the swastika on our blankets, baskets, art objects,
sand paintings, and clothing. Now I want you to really
think about that, right, because they've done nothing wrong and
the Whirling Log has done nothing wrong. They are choosing
(17:08):
to give up a sacred symbol because of something a
completely different group of people across the world have done
with a version of that symbol as an act of
solidarity with their victims. And I want to be clear,
I'm not saying like this is the right thing or
not doing this would have been the wrong thing, because
I don't think it would have been wrong if they'd said, look,
(17:30):
this is our religious symbol. We're not going to change
it just because of these assholes, right, I think that
would have been fine too. I'm just saying that's a
really noteworthy decision to matter, especially prior to Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I think that's like it is, like you said, it
seems like an act of solidarity. We can't exactly know
what was going through their heads or their conversations, but
it does. I mean, what else could it be except
like we can no longer abide this, even if it's
like a huge important story in our culture. It's like,
what's more important is no longer allowing this symbol to
(18:04):
have a power that we don't consent to, Right, it's like,
no matter what. Now, I think it's it's obvious that this,
this horrible superpower has basically usurped the use of this
and it's just not going to Yeah, you know, it
just can no longer mean what it means to outsiders.
And maybe that would have been fine if it were
(18:25):
just like an internally used symbol, but yeah, what, it's
just like heartbreaking, it's really heartbreaking, very sack.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, I do have there might be a darker reason,
and I'm sure a number of things played into the
decision that they made. The darker part of my mind says, well,
maybe they were concerned they see what is gearing up,
and they think, like, well, if we go to war,
you know, this is forties is before the US is
in the war. But like if the United States goes
(18:50):
to war with the Germans, it might be dangerous for
us to like have this on shit, right, Like we
might fucking we might people, This might call some of
our people to get targeted, right. That may have also
been a factor. I don't that's certainly not like a
thing that they write out here. I do think it
was probably more just like a solidarity and also like, yeah,
(19:13):
just an acknowledgment of the I mean a lot of
Navajo people, a lot of Hope people. You know, a
lot of Apache people are going to wind up fighting
against the Nazis too, So yeah, it's anyway, it's a
remarkable moment and kind of I think worth acknowledging. So
we all know the next part of the story, right,
(19:33):
you got your World War two, the Nazis, you know,
you're doing some stuff, and then America, without anyone else's help,
wins the war, right you know, that's I think everyone's
familiar with the gist of the story. So during the
war years, it becomes dangerous to be associated with the
Nazis and the swastika. Laura Ingalls, a pilot and a
Nazi sympathizer, is put on trial in nineteen forty two
(19:57):
and her swastika bracelet is brought up as evidence of
for fascist leadings Ingles claims it was just an Indian
symbol for good luck, but she is convicted of failing
to register as an enemy agent, although her swastika bracelet
apparently didn't factor into this, but it does get brought
up in the trial. The war ends, the swastika gets
falls and as a political symbol. You know, it becomes
(20:20):
profoundly toxic, particularly after knowledge of the Holocaust becomes more widespread.
This leads to its disappearance from like, you know, anodyne
normal products that like a person would want to have
in their house. But it does not lead to its
disappearance from popular products. It just causes a change in
the kind of products that it shows up on. Stephen
(20:41):
Heller writes quote. It was used increasingly on paperback book
covers for spy and mystery yarns, and on covers for
men's pulp adventure magazines. Even today, the most common sanctioned
mainstream use of the mark is on jackets for fiction
and nonfiction books with World War Two themes. In the
late forties and fifties, the male public's fascination with things
Nazi was disturbingly fetishistic, and to an extent it still is.
(21:04):
Yet publishers knew what they were doing. From a marketing standpoint.
The swastika was such an identifiable icon, a magnet, so
to speak, that a browser could perceive content without ever
reading the title. It is indeed ironic that the swastika
has evolved from benevolent sign to sinister national emblem to
a veritable point of purchase display in only a few generations.
(21:24):
And he provides a really interesting example of this that
Svie's going to show you from the men's magazine World
of Men.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We got the Girls, We got the Men.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So you've got this big two thirds of it is
this illustration of like a Nazi He's sticking his bayonet
into a woman's a very blonde, white woman's breast. There's
a big swastika very visible on his bicep. There's another
swastika on this train behind him that's full of Nazi soldiers.
There's a woman behind her who's got like a strapless
(21:57):
shirt on that's like she looks like she's being taken
into custody or something like that by these Nazis. And
then the title of uh the the apparent story that
these pictures are for is lust slaves of Hitler's Walsap butcher.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh god, wow, the mistress demands soft flesh.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I was gonna say, that's one of the other big stories.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
There's a lot of great stories in this episode. Now, Chelsea,
I'm not a word cop, but I will say you
never need to use the phrase lust slaves. That's never
a necessary term. There's no need to ever use the
phrase lust slave.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
No, it should really be retired from Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
How to master today is sex Starved Woman?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah? It's another article in World.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You were with a Bayonet Avenue call Girl.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, yeah, revealed sin capers have turned on co Ed's
Man World of Men. Yeah, because bloody horror.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Uh what an incredible magazine now the cover shows Yeah,
so it's great stuff. Now, when I saw this incredible magazine,
absolute work of historical art, I knew I had a
sacred duty to try and find a copy, and unfortunately
I couldn't. But the Internet archive does have a collection
of men's magazines from the fifties and sixties, and I
will promise you all we'll do a whole episode going
(23:23):
through some of these in the future because they look incredible.
Here's one cover that I just want to talk about.
It has nothing to do with Nazis, but it's glorious. Chelsea,
look at this, Sofie.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Let's see it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I'm sorry, chelsee Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Teen Sororities, Schools for Free Love, Passion and Orgies exposed
suburban sex cults, how they operate Exclusive Beware the World
of Lust Without Love and it's like a picture of
a shake and there is a Nazi. Actually the swastika
is not fully visible, but there's like a shake and
a Nazi tying a woman in a red dress to
a palm tree, and she actually has pawns for the
(24:06):
reds shafts of steel.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's also a real picture of a woman on this
one up there.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
There is a real picture of a woman. She looks
like she is topless. I'm guessing these are kind of
playboy Yeah, yeah, she looks great.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
She looks great.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Helpless brides of the lash in Satan's hell.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That's what I want. I want all that satanic panic content,
all that early sex cult panic. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Look, these are there's problematic aspects of this, but I
think we can all agree the people who wrote these
titles used the English language in a way that is
unique and beautiful. Hey everyone, Robert here, As you've noticed,
my audio just took the dive in quality. That is
because my zoom recorder died forever, irrevocably while we were
(24:50):
recording this episode, and I did not notice it because
I was lost in the heat of the moment. Which
is also a pretty good song by the band Asia anyway,
I I don't know why my zoom died. Perhaps it
was the crypto fascists, you know, trying to stop this
episode from airing. Perhaps it was the Reds using the
crypto fascists as cover in order to stop my investigation
(25:11):
into their lust slave cartel. We'll never know, but I
do apologize. My audio for the rest of this episode
will be the Zoom safety audio we used and is
a slightly lower quality.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yes, they definitely knew how to get attention. Are you
following with Jack Chick?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Oh? God, yes, absolutely, we just did.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
We just did a three parter on Jack Chick, The
King the Gohast.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It just reminds me a little bit, you know, totally
different like motivations, but very similar pulpy, you know, extreme content.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Jack Chick is actually the primary sponsor of this podcast.
So we're worried about going to hell because you've been
reading men's magazines from the nineteen fifties. You are to
come on and help you out right after this. Ah,
(26:07):
we're back, boy, My soul fields cleansed. Oh I'm not
even thinking about helpless Brides of the Lash and Satan's
Hell anymore, Chelsea.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
No, I've got a new Lord and Savior.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
A new Lord and Savior.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I could look at these magazines for hours and we
will soon, don't worry, folks.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I hope.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
So while the use of the swastika in Western nations
was confined to bad guys and entertainment media for decades,
elsewhere in the world it did have occasional resurgences. And
this brings us back to India. Now India again, it's
both pretty distant from Nazi aggression. The Nazis aren't really
a threat in the subcontinent, and it's also a place
(26:47):
where swastikas are a very popular religious symbol. One of
the weird things I spent months living in Northeast India,
primarily Delhi, and one of the things that was always
really I mean, at first, at least there's a week
two it was weird and then it became kind of normal.
It is like right in the front of like many houses,
there's just a swastika. Now it's not the same, like
(27:07):
it's reversed. There's usually like a series of dots and
stuff around it. But it's a very common decoration on
the front of houses. Now, the fact that the swastika
in you know, Hindu culture particularly has a history that
has nothing to do with the Nazis. Also has coexisted
the fact that there is a very complex modern history
(27:30):
of the Nazis in India and their relation to particular
like Hindu nationalists political parties. Because the Nazis fought against
the British Empire, a good number of Hindu nationalists were
willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This
is compounded with the fact that popular Nazis spiritual philosopher
(27:51):
Saviitri Devi lived in India much of her life organized
with a lot of people who will be the political
precursors to the party that is the party of the
Prime Minister of India in Gramodi, who is very far
right and kind of even beyond this, the Nazis send
researchers to parts of the subcontinent with a group called
(28:12):
the Onanairb which is like a it is the group
doing a lot of like this occult research and stuff
and sort of the pre war Nazi era to kind
of investigate the origin point of the Aryans in India. Right,
So there's a lot of reasons why there's this kind
of like complex history of the Nazis within India.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Well, and Hiller really admired India. Yeah, you're like EuroAsia
sort of.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You know, there's a makes sense, a complex history there,
and it's it's problematic at times. And part of what
makes it problematic is like, because of distance, there's not
really this sense of the immediacy of Hitler's crimes for
a lot of folks in that part of the world,
and this will cause some complicated problems. In the late
nineteen sixties, contemporaneous to an American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell,
(29:02):
an Indian Nazi party formed in New Delhi using the
German Hagenkroi as It's simple. It promised that if elected
to power, India would be the strongest power on the planet.
They failed to get any real support. The Indian Nazi
Party does not take off, but actual Nazi imagery retains
a sort of low key popularity in the subcontinent, alongside
(29:24):
the more traditional religious uses of the swastika, and some
of this contributed to the rise of a culture of
admiration for Hitler as a business guru within India. Hitler
is one of the best known sort of business influencers.
You might say Wow, this is a more complicated topic
than we're going to talk about today. But it's because
(29:46):
of this history, because you can find like management books
that are like management lessons from Hitler and stuff. If
you google around as a result of all this, if
you google around, you'll run into variations of the same story,
which is that some Indian business own owner who's kind
of mainly aware of like Hitler and the Nazis, as
a result of this weird kind of business influencer thing,
will open a store or a restaurant with very weird
(30:09):
and specific Nazi branding. It will get covered in a
news article, a lot of people will get angry, and
there will nearly always be a follow up interviewing the
owner of the store, who kind of seems befuddled that
anyone's pissed about this. Here's one example from a two
thousand and six New York Times article. Boonite Sablock, twenty
three years old, in a Novas restaurant tour, says he
(30:30):
wanted a catchy cafe name to sell his three to
four dollars plates of Christina Tono pear and ricotta salad
in panacotta, so he went with Hitler's cross. He put
a swastika in the logo. He named his restaurant Hitler,
saying Hitler is a catchy name. Everyone knows Hitler. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It's again. It's good marketing. I guess it draws eyes.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
I guess I know that it makes money, but it
does draw eyes. Yeah, I probably don't need to explain
that the local Jewish community was not thrilled with this.
Later in the article, Sablock is quoted as saying, I
never wanted to promote Hitler. I just wanted to promote
my restaurant.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Well, you know what that reminds me of is not
that far from where I live. There is a restaurant
called the Soup Nazi Kitchen, and you know that's honestly
a reference to Seinfeld. But it's like, bro, yeah, I
don't know, maybe it says Nazi in your name. It's
so weird.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Part of why these stories tend to blow up is
that India has a very large expat population of Israelis
a lot of young Israeli kids also travel there. In fact,
when I was living in Delhi, one of my friends
was this dude who had fled to India so he
wouldn't get drafted by the IDF. That same year, there
was a big blow up because a guy in Mumbai
opened a clothing boutique that was just named Hitler. The
(31:47):
pictures are pretty wild. It's like a high end mall
fashion store with a big glowing Hitler logo and there's
even a swastika and the dot on the eye. And
the owner of the shop, Rajah Shah, expressed shot that
people were angry. Telling the AFP, I didn't know how
much the name would disturb people. It was only when
the store opened I learned Hitler had killed six million people.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
What I lovedumb huh.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that's a real that's a real problem for you.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Huh wow, it is.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
You know, very similarly, when I wanted to start this podcast,
the first name that I wanted to launch it, launch
it under was just Jeffrey Dahmer. Sophie had to inform
me that there was actually a problematic context with that name.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And what could that be.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know, Sophie actually appreciate is there somebody with that
name or something?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Orbert Roberts trying to do a bit here. But he's
this is literally a factual story. I believe it.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
The Jeffrey Dahmer cast draw some eyes.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
You know, and and and our sales team was like, oh,
I don't know, we do a lot of meal kit services.
I don't know if well that'll go.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
An American horst. I mean, then we just get Dahmer
the TV show with.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I don't support his murders, but I am a big
fan of the way in which he used different spices.
You know. Look, you can divorce the man from from
the art. It should be the end of the bit.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
So let's go.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
This is all very dumb. No one should use Hitler
as a brand ambassador or try to divorce his management
secrets from his crimes more than he was a bad manager.
I was going to say, when for a good reason.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
It's not the boss, bitch. You think it's.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Not the boss, bitch. You think this is not a
thing a person should have to say, right. But it's
when we get back to the US, which has both
a large Jewish population and a lot of folks who
are descended from you know, who are who are Indian? Right?
Who are who are des he? You know, are Hindu
or a Buddhist. It's when we get here that things
get very messy because in India again very normal to
(33:56):
c swastikas. It is not a problem. You know, if
you've got that as a religious symbol, you know in
your house, you know, in your clothing and a decoration.
And obviously I don't think no reasonable person would ask
that a whole culture stop using a religious symbol because
of some assholes used a similar one. But it's a
little more complicated in the US, where you've got lots
(34:17):
of Holocaust survivors and their descendants who are going to
have a powerful gut reaction to skiing something like that.
My gut wants to say, Look, the Hindu swastika is
not the hogen KROI. It shouldn't be. We should be
able to like talk about this. But like it's also
not that simple, right, and this is not hope. I
don't want to come across let's lead into here. Neither
side's wrong here. I'm not going to come down like
(34:39):
condemning either group. This is like a really messy problem,
but it isn't It is interesting to me, and I
don't think enough people know that this is a a
thing that is an issue. So there have always been
a significant chunk of Indian people, of Hindu people, I
should say, because a lot of Indians are Muslim who
took umbrage at the thought that most of the world
(35:01):
had kind of tossed the swastika aside because of the Nazis.
In nineteen seventy nine, a Sanskrit scholar P. R. Sarkar
claimed that it was the symbol of permanent victory and
that like any symbol, it had positive and negative meanings.
His argument was that the right hand swastika was the
symbol of Vishnu, while the left hand, which is kind
of the one that the Nazis used, was the symbol
of Kali. Starting in the early nineteen nineties, with the
(35:23):
fall of the Soviet Union, Russian far right organizations and
other fascist political groups in the former Warsaw Pact nations
started to revive the swastika for different reasons. Obviously, for whatever.
For all of it's, you know, the different things that
were culturally problematic in the Soviet Union. One thing they're
good about is you're not allowed to display swastikas in
the Soviet Union. Right shouldn't have to explain why. But
(35:47):
once the Soviet Union falls, it because it had been
banned for so long, and because the right had been,
you know, in their eyes, suppressed for so long it
gets taken up as this symbol for all of these
different right wing national movements are trying to revive it.
And Stephen Heller writes here quote the Soviet Union and
Czarist Russia before it was riddled with anti Semitism. Similarly,
(36:07):
in the early nineteen nineties, there emerged a virulent strain
among ultra right wing groups calling for old fashioned pagrams
and new styled ethnic cleansing. While nestled on the fringe,
this decidedly organized milane of monarchist, neo fascist and pamat
are memory organizations openly hawked their ideologies on the street
until Boris Yeltsen's October nineteen ninety three emergency decrees banned
(36:28):
opposition media. Polemical newspapers with the titles Russia Arise the
Russian New Order in People's Business, featuring realistic drawings of
heroic looking black shirted Russian stormtroopers, scaprists, anti Semitic caricatures
and portraits of Adolf Hitler himself were unashamedly displayed at
sidewalk tables throughout Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Various iterations of
(36:49):
the swastika, sometimes combined with historic Russian folk iconography, were
also in full view. A visitor to Moscow reported that
it was impossible to walk a block without running into
at least one of these displays. And this will feed
into a lot of the issues that we have in
Ukraine and in Russia right now with different Nazi organizations.
Right this is where a lot of that has its
kind of origin point. And while it is coming back
(37:11):
into use in Eastern Europe, it is also starting to
get revived in the eighties and nineties in the United
States as a symbol for the right now. The swastika
has this really awkward position in US counterculture since the
end of the Second World War. The first place, obviously,
George Lincoln Rockwell attempts to bring it back with his
(37:32):
American Nazi Party, but that's always decidedly fringed. The first
kind of place where you see it commonly is biker gangs,
and specifically Hunter Thompson is actually the journalist who did
some of the first good reporting on this in his
book Hells Angels. But biker gangs in the post World
War two era form primarily out of like vets guys
who had never been able to integrate into post war society,
(37:55):
and a lot of them had fought Nazis, and they
had medals and helmets and other booty taken from the Germans,
some of which had swastikas which they would wear on
their like motorcycle gear, both to shock and to signal like, yeah,
I'm an outsider, I'm on the fringe, but I did
my time for my country too, So it's.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Kind of a symbol of valor. At the same time,
it's a comp let's say, it's a complicated but that
was part of the intention at least was like not
like I am a Nazi, but I fought Nazis.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, yeah, part of the intentions some of them are Nazis.
And then we're getting to that, so that, yeah, this
means that a number of the first proto punk types,
because a lot of punk culture in the United States
says come out of these biker yeah war swastikas and
stall helms because they had fought Nazis. But also a
lot of these guys are violently anti communists, and so
(38:49):
it becomes complicated. Another group that wears the swastika commonly
in the nineteen sixties are surf bums, right, Like surf
bums have a lot of different swastik could get a
lot of early surfing equipment shops have swastikas or variations
of Nazi iconography in their logos. It is not uncommon
in the sixties, and a lot of this kind of
(39:10):
translates to some of the first punks in the nineteen seventies,
some of whom are Nazis and some of whom are
just trying to like trigger people.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Like transgressive behavior.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
In the book Subculture the Meaning of Style, author Dick
Hebridge relates that one female punk explained to him, punk's
just like to be hated for sure.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Sure, it's the quickest way to get hated.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's all these weird like
surf brands and early skating brands that will use pieces
of Nazi iconography and will claim they don't have far
right sympathies. Some of them do and like become part
of you know, kind and some of them don't and
are just kind of being edge lords. You know, we
didn't have that term at the time. But all of
this is mixed, and the people who are just kind
(39:56):
of being edge lords, do it's fair to criticize provide
cover to the actual straight up Nazis, you know, they
provide sort of space for this to get accepted among
people that allows some recruitment. This is all happening alongside
a surge in the late eighties early nineties and actual
Nazi organizing and the establishment of groups like White Aryan
(40:17):
Resistance who ape aspects of a punk aesthetic, you might
say pseudo ironic use of the swastika gives cover two
real Nazis. Now, all of this makes the issue of
Hindu people, of Buddhists, of Native Americans in the United
States and elsewhere in the West trying to reclaim the
swastika very complicated, right because you do you get people
(40:40):
who are you know, Hindu or Buddhists being like, I
should be able to utilize this symbol that is a
religious symbol for me, that's a cultural symbol that I saw,
you know, as a kid, and you have you do
have you know, members of different indigenous tribes who'd use
the swastika, some whom are saying like, well, maybe we
should be able to go back to it. Now. It
has been like nearly andred years like, we feel like
(41:01):
we did our bit here and this is complex. I'm
going to quote from a twenty twenty two ap News
article here. It sort of sets up the stakes, she telled.
Dio was shocked when she got a letter from her
Queen's apartment building's co op board calling her Dwali decoration
offensive and demanding she take it down. My decoration said
happy d Wali and had a swastika on it, said Dio,
(41:22):
a physician who was celebrating the Hindu Festival of Lights.
Doo believes she and people of other faiths should not
have to sacrifice or apologize for a sacred symbol simply
because it has often conflated with its tainted version. To me,
that's intolerable, he said. And like, yeah, that's a fair point.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, now they're fighting against nineties edge lords
who are like spray painting it at the skate park
to be like, oh, look at this, like you know.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
This is complex, yeah, very And Among the people who
had issue with Dio's display for Duali decoration was Shelley Wernick,
who was the managing director of the Jewish Federation's Holocaust
Survivor Carowing and she points out that seeing a swastika
at home or out and about can be re traumatizing
for elderly survivors, which is also a fair point.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
But yeah, of course seeing that in any.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Context really mess you up. You know, I nobody's I don't.
I'm not. There's not like any no one's in the
wrong here, right, I'm not like to take out This
is complicated. You know what else is complicated? Chelsey?
Speaker 3 (42:28):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
The moral dimensions of advertising products and services in order
to support a podcast?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You're telling me, huh huh.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
And that's why we're just gonna ignore it. Here's some ads. Ah,
we're back and uh, feeling good, feeling good. So one
of the people quoted, and that really quite fatating AP
(43:01):
News article is a New York based Buddhist priest who
was disturbed when he heard somebody at an inner faith
conference called the swastika the universal symbol of evil. And
whatever your stance on the matter is, that simply can't
be correct, right like this is still there's like a
billion or more people for whom this is still a
religious symbol. Hitler doesn't have the power to make that
(43:22):
a universal symbol of evil, right Like that is I
think a bad way to phrase it. Widely recognized as
a symbol of evil is true because a lot of
people do recognize it this way. You know that anyway
complicated this Buddhist the Reverend T. K. Nakagaki wrote a
book in twenty eighteen called the Buddhist Swastika in Hitler's Cross,
Rescuing a symbol of peace from the forces of hate.
(43:45):
And one thing that he points out, because he's a
big advocate of we should call the symbol that is
sacred to all these different peoples the swastika or you know,
presumably when you talking about like the Navajo, you would
use the term the whirling log. But when we refer
to the Nazi of the symbol, we should call it
the hagen Kroi. Right. And one thing he points out
that I was unaware of is that in newspapers across
(44:07):
the United States the Nazi cross was referred to as
the hagen Kroi until the early nineteen thirties when they
use the term swastika. Now I get his point here.
I don't think that that's like necessarily wrong, but it
is worth noting that the Nazis call it out a
swastika a lot of the time too, like it is
being used by them at that point in time. And
(44:27):
I to be quite frank, at this point, I don't
know how you get people to stop in the West
to associate hagen Kroi with the Nazis, but not swastika,
like you have an easier time with like whirling LG.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Now there are legitimate harms that all of this causes
for members of faiths who have done nothing wrong. In California,
public the display of the swastika has been criminalized. There
are exceptions for this, including the sacred swastika used by Hindus,
but it does not called the illegal swastika a Hagenkroi
and instead uses the term swastika, which could confuse law enforcement,
(45:06):
might conceivably lead to problems. Even the worry of this
itself could cause a chilling effect on religious expression. Quote
Pushpita Prasad, a spokesperson for the Hindu group, called it
a victory, but said the legislation unfortunately labels both Hitler's
symbol and the sacred one as swastika's. This is not
just an esoteric battle, Prissad said, but an issue with
real life consequences for immigrant communities whose members have resorted
(45:29):
to self censoring. Vickas Jane, a Cleveland physician, said that
he and his wife hid images containing the symbol when
their children's friends visited because they wouldn't know the difference.
Jane says he stands in solidarity with the Jewish community,
but is sad that he cannot freely practice his Jane
faith because of this lack of understanding. He noted that
the global Jaane symbol has a swastika in it, but
(45:51):
in the United States, the Jain community has deliberately removed
the swastika from its seal. Jane wishes that people would
differentiate between their symbol of thas piece and Hitler's swastika,
just as they do with the hateful burning cross symbol
in Christianity's sacred Crucifix, which I think is a really
good thing.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
That is a really good point.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Certain uses of the Christian cross are definitely offensive and frightening,
but we don't say nobody should be wearing a crucifix, right,
you know. Now, there's also a growing movement in some
indigenous circles to end the year's long prohibition on their
use of the swastik or the worling log. The consternation
over this by some Jewish organizations is understandable, as is
(46:30):
the desire of people to return to their use of
the symbol. Again, no one's wrong here. You know, it's complicated,
And I'm going to continue with a quote from that
AP article. For the Navajo people, the symbol shaped like
a swirl represents the universe in life, said Patricia Ann Davis,
an elder at the choctaw Ina Dina is the term
for the Navajo people that is actually used by them
(46:52):
for themselves. It was a spiritual, esoteric symbol that was
woven into the Navajo rugs until Hitler took something good,
beautiful and made it twisted, she said. And I think
again I want to say here, I'm not saying either
that like Jewish organizations have like a black and white
necessarily view about this. Again, there's a lot of appreciation
(47:12):
on both sides about what a complex and thorny problem
this is. And I don't think anyone's really behaving unreasonably here.
Jeff Kellman, a New Hampshire Holocaust historian, often lectures to
Jewish community organizations about the fundamental differences between the swastika
and the Hockencroix, and he told the AP he feels
like his message about the possibility of redeeming the symbol
(47:34):
has gained recent ground among many Jewish survivors and descendants
of survivors. Quote, when they learn an Indian girl could
be named Swastika and she could be harassed in school,
they understand how they should see these as two separate symbols.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
He said.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
No one in the Jewish community wants to see Hitler's
legacy continue to harm people. One of the people quoted
in that article is gret At Elbagin. She's an eighty
five year old Holocaust survivor whose grandmother and cousins died
at Auschway were murdered at Outwards, and she says she
was surprised to learn about the symbols. Past Elbagin was
born in nineteen thirty eight, when the Nazis forcibly annexed
(48:09):
Austrian She went into hiding with relatives in Hungary and
immigrated to the US in nineteen fifty six and became
a social worker. This new knowledge about the swastika, Elbergin said,
feels liberating. She no longer fears a symbol that was
used to terrorize. Hearing that the swastika is beautiful and
sacred to so many people is a blessing. She said.
It's time to let go of the past and look
into the future. And I'm not saying that that's the
(48:32):
only way to think about it either. If you're on
the side of this is like a person who is
a descendant of Holocaust survivors going like, I don't feel
comfortable with this. That's perfectly reasonable too. This is like, again,
is very complicated.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
What all this speaks to is like the just the
incredible power of symbols right to the human race. It's
just so amazing that this same or like a riff
on a similar symbol can mean both good luck and
this huge hero's journey and this powerful religious story. While
(49:06):
on the other hand, it's a symbol of actual mass
murder and horror and death, but it's the same symbol.
It's just the power that we have as humans to
project onto that whatever we need to or want to
or believe and accept the symbols that are given to
us by people in power who have a you know,
(49:26):
an idea about what the symbol can mean and what
it can do. It's wild.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Yeah, there's a lot covid on here. So I just
wanted people to be aware of that, not to take,
you know, one side or the other or not that
the sides I presented are the only ways to feel
about this. This is a tremendously complicated thing to think about,
but it is worth thinking about. This is something you
(49:52):
should as just as a person, not even as just
like somebody's who's Jane. There's somebody who's you know, Navajo,
somebody who's Jewish that you should be thinking about, but
just as like a human being, because this is one
way or the other, regardless of where you land, This
is everyone symbol. It is universal to the human race
more or less.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It appears everywhere every place in the world, and it
always has.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
And it always has everywhere. That is so wild. It
was in Ohio, it.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Was Ohio, It's all over It's in China. God, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Swastika.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
I'm not over that swastika Oregon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
It's so hard because you can't be in solidarity with
everyone in this situation. I mean, you can try to
be by just.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Si solidarity for like, wow, this is messy.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, and I'd say that's the best way to have
solidarity is just to say, like, I actually can't say
the answer. I can't say that I can respect everyone
in this situation. He's trying to like make a better
world through either readopting a symbol or making it disappear.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
It's like, I think it's probably the kind of thing
where the only real solutions are ad hoc. You know,
if you've got a situation where members of you know,
a local Jewish community and you know, sitting down with
members of like a Jane community or whatever, and they're
they're talking about how to allow, you know, how to
have the symbol expressed in its original religious meaning in
(51:19):
a way that's not going to make people uncomfortable. That's
fine if you've got you know, somebody wants to display
Dwally thing in their apartment building, and there's an elderly
Holocaust survivor and they decide, well, I guess we won't
put this outside because it might scare this this elderly person,
and like we don't want to do that. I think
that's also reasonable. I think if another thing happened, there's
not I don't have I don't have like a clear
(51:42):
there's the wrong or the right thing to do here.
This is just like one of the legacies of you know,
World War Two, but also just a thing that human
beings always have to deal with, is the Yeah, I
know it's complicated, very complicated. Should be aware that it's
a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Absolutely. I am so happy that this was the topic
that I got because I just I can't believe I
didn't know this. I'm absolutely just shocked and awed at
all of this.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, if you want a really good book on the subject,
the swastika symbol Beyond Redemption question Mark by Stephen Heller,
very readable. Whenever this comes up, whenever there's an issue
of like somebody displays the swastika for religious reason and
it causes like a conflict, Stephen usually gets interviewed by
like the journalists writing about it because he's just like
(52:32):
the guy who writes about this very good book. I
do recommend it if you're interested in more detail.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
Anyway, Chelsea, get anything to plug, sure, I mean, I'm
just you know what, I will specifically plug an episode
of my podcast American Hysteria called Astrology and the series
we did because it deals with not only astrologers as
they existed in the White House and advising for me,
which is a yes, yep, you know, you know, But
(53:03):
it also goes into how the Nazis used astrologers as
like secret agents as well to sort of push propaganda,
and that just seems like kind of in the same
vein of this this series here and yeah, American Asterria,
you can find it anywhere. We study moral panics, urban legends,
conspiracy theories and how they've affected American history.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, well you can find me right here.
You can find my novel After the Revolution wherever books
are sold. Just type After the Revolution into any book thing,
or again, screech it from the top of your lungs
while waving some sort of carved war club at the
guy who runs the Barnes and Noble, you know, or
(53:45):
Applebee's or sorry yeah, or Applebee's whatever.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
That's the episode Behind the Bastards is a production of
cool Zone Media. More from cool Zone Media, visit our
website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
H what wasn't my Sophie, Sophie, I'm just trying. I'm
trying to recapture that what's boiling my pig Anus's energy?
That I still like.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The class what's cracking my peppers? That's still one of
my favorite ones you've ever done. I know it's been
four years.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Again never again, fine, just going to make it more
and more off putting. You know, you know, what's trafficking
my children?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
That kind of stuff just going to be a problem us.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Yeah. Uh well, this is Behind the Bastards podcast Worse
People tell you all about them? Uh and today getting
behind really behind the Nazis by getting behind the Swastika
with Chelsea Weber Smith.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Oh, this has been so interesting so far, and I
just have no idea really where it's going. So thanks
for having me here and taking me on this journey.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Thank you for being here. Chelsea Weber Smith, whose podcast
American Hysteria is pretty cool and people should check out Chelsea.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes you ready, I'm ready, are ready?
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And then a bunch of like anyway, I don't know
why I hate that.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
That's who we are now.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
That's like so our uh uh well, I probably shouldn't
tell that story. But I come across periodically old pieces
of like Nazi paraphernalia. It's a it's a hazard of
the job. And there's definitely been a few times when
I've been like, oh, that would be an interesting like
that book would be interesting to have because of you know,
(01:47):
this person who signed it, and then like, no, I
don't need that in my house. What am I? What
am I doing? You're you're you're you don't you don't
want to.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Have this, Robert, this haunted ass book.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, this haunted ass Nazi book. I was given through
someone else, a like family heirloom that was an old
Hitler youth dagger, and I had no idea what to
do with it, so I just kind of like put
it in my trash pile out in the yard and
it's just slowly decaying, which I think is the right
thing to do with a Hitler youth dagger.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Was that the one that was mailed to the corporate office?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
No, no, no, no, no. Yeah. We get all sorts
of weird stuff. So in the late nineteen twenties and
early nineteen thirties you might have heard about this. The
Nazis rise to power, they solidify their grip on power,
you know, and while sort of the while the Nazis
are kind of like moving up in their inevitable kind
(02:40):
of like path towards taking control of the German government.
There's all sorts of fighting in the street. You know.
You got your old timey anti fascists, both kind of
social democrats and communists, you know, duking it out with
the Nazis in the streets. And these street fights, these
big brawls, these murders and assassinations are kind of a
regular call of fascination in the world media, right, Like,
(03:02):
they get a lot of attention in the American newspapers
in particular, and so they start sending over reporters to
cover all of this unrest in Weimar, Germany. In nineteen
twenty seven, an American journalist from Town and Country magazine
traveled to Austria to report on fighting between local social
democrats and Nazi aligned fascists. Being a dumb American, this person,
(03:24):
she did not worry much about the fact that she
had gone to Austria in nineteen twenty seven with her
girls club ring which bore a swastika on it.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
So she's gotlub Yeah, she's.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Like showing up to like embed with the social democrat
like street fighting gangs, and she's got a swastika ring,
and like one of these guys has to take her
aside and be like, I can't be wearing that here,
Like I know you don't mean it, but you gotta
take that thing off.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
God, that is amazing.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
That's so funny.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Oh, it's amazing. Well, history is so rich.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
History is rich. But also there have always been you know,
as someone who's done conflict reporting, I know a lot
of great journalists, a lot of people I respect a lot,
but the majority of journalists who do that kind of
work are always like shitheads, right, and like it is
a shitheaded thing to like go to travel to like
report on the fighting between these Nazis and these other
(04:27):
groups and not be like should I bring my swastika ring?
Like maybe I should leave this at You did not
do that much research.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Yeah, you didn't possess the very most basic knowledge that
you would need to report for newspaper off those events.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
It is nineteen twenty seven, you had some time.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Wow, Yeah, sloppy, sloppy.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Six years later, in nineteen thirty three, Hitler had been
made Chancellor of Germany. This obviously supercharged international resistance to
the regime, and American anti fascists held a rally in
New York City to protest the newly minted dictator. One
journalist with The New Yorker showed up to cover the
event and realized very quickly that his pocket watch, which
wasngraved with a swastika, might be a bad thing to
(05:11):
have out on the street with it. Right, Like, really again,
but it does kind of show I'm making fun of
these people, and I think they should be. But it
does show you, like how banal it was seen as,
where like somebody might show up and be like, oh, fuck,
I can't have this thing on me. I didn't realize
this would be a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Starting in the
(05:33):
early thirties, American use of the swastika began to decline,
and this was matched throughout much of the Western world.
For reasons I probably don't need to spend too much
time on, right, not not surprising that it does start
to decline in its kind of anadyne usage. In Nazi Germany,
the new regime actually encouraged this at first. The ubiquity
(05:55):
of the symbol had been good for them right in
the early years when they're rising to power. It's free
pr but now they're in power, and the hundreds of
men have died fighting under the swastikab so it has
become this kind of holy symbol of sacrifice. And once
they're in power, the Nazis kind of find it horrifying
that some company might use it to sell coffee. In
nineteen thirty three, Joseph Gerbels announced the Law for Protection
(06:18):
of National Symbols. Quote. If the symbol is used on
an object or in connection with it, it may only
be used if the object itself has an interrelation to
the symbol. The use of symbols for publicity purposes is
in any case forbidden. So basically this law means you
can't use a swastika to sell a cigar or whatever,
right unless it's like you're doing a fundraiser for the
(06:39):
Nazi Party, then you can probably get away with it.
For the Nazis, the swastika then had come full circle
from a symbol that they co opted to mainstream their
image to a sacred object restricted from commercial use unless
that commercial use was Nazi in origin. This created problems
for a number of people, particularly people outside of Nazi
(06:59):
Germany and Some of those people were Canadians who lived
in the quaint northern Ontario town of Swastika, named after Yeah,
just picking up the news one morning, like you know,
you're living out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe you
don't check in for a while, and then like you
see that like Hitler's taking power in Germany and you
(07:20):
look at the banner behind him, like, oh, fuck God,
this is going to be a problem for us. Swastikers
now Swastika Ontario woo. Swastika Ontario was named after the
Swastika gold mines staked in nineteen oh seven. The town
name was inspired by the Sanskrit symbol, not the other thing.
(07:44):
Several mines soon came to dot the boomtown, and all
of them were kind of Swastika themed. There was the
Swastika mine. There was also the Lucky Cross mine. In
nineteen forty, as the war breaks out, members of Swastika
or citizens of Swastika started to feel preture to change
the town name. There are a couple of articles at
the time where like people in town are like, we're
(08:05):
not changing the name. They don't get to take it
from us, Like this has been our name longer than
they've been using it, you know. But eventually the provincial
government overrules them and they send like I don't know,
mounties or whatever to take the swastika sign outside of
town and replace it with one that says Winston.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Winston doesn't have the same ring to it.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
No, no, no, no. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
People should have owned like an NFL team with that energy.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Although it does make me think what if Hitler had
adopted as a symbol just a man named Winston or
maybe a carton of Winston cigarettes. You know, it is different.
World War Two. Yeah, a lot of Americans and Camels
writing to Nurember or to a fucking Normandy. So yeah,
(08:53):
they changed the town. The provincial government tries to change
the town name to Winston, and the Swastikas are so
adamant that, like, we're not going to change our town name.
They tear down the Winston sign and they put up
their own news sign for Swastika, telling reporters still with Hitler,
we came up with our name first.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Hey, I appreciate the dedication.
Speaker 4 (09:15):
You know, this is where things g Yeah, I mean,
you know they're not wrong, right, like because it's not
their fault, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Like that might not be the right hill to die on.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
I wouldn't. This is not the hill I would pick
to die on. Just my little town in Ontario has
the name, but it makes me think. So, Like, the
first big piece of like conflict reporting I did was
after the Botoclon massacre in two thousand and fifteen, when
Isis murdered dozens and dozens of people in France at
(09:50):
that like mass shooting type deal. I did this article
where I went through like eight or nine hundred pages
of like Isis propaganda and like wrote this thing about
their weird magazine. But like I remember, I spent like
two or three days just kind of like stuck in
my little office writing this thing, and then I go
out to like do laundry at the laundromat near my house,
which was the Isis laundromat. So I just remember like
(10:12):
looking up at it and being like, that's probably gonna
be a problem for you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Man in the similar vein, we have a dry cleaner
that is just called Q cute.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's not on you.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
But I know if we did it first, they haven't
changed it.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
There is another funny story about this of Swastika Mountain
in southern Oregon. Uh Now, Oregon has a famously bad
Nazi problem, so you might assume probably a dark.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
History mountain is a combination of words.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Swastika Mountain in Oregon. Yeah, in Oregon. But no, it
was it was again, it predates the use of that.
It was just somebody, some guy decided call it Swastika Mountain.
It got renamed like a couple of years ago. It
was not all that law ago that that the state
was like, you probably shouldn't.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Have this, Like what year are we talking? Like a
couple of.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Years ago, Like not all that long ago that mountain
got renamed northwesterners. It wasn't a big it's not like
a major mountain, right, It's not like hood. It's not
one of your money mountains, you know. I also, I
can remember there's this farmhouse I used to spend a
lot of time in pretty old farmhouse outside of about
an hour and a half outside of Reading, in the
middle of fucking nowhere, north central California, that the original
(11:30):
owner had burnt into the wooden roof all of the
different cattle brands from different ranches in the area, and
one of them is a fucking swastika, and it was
one of knowing the area. Like I actually knew a
guy who had been in the Hitler youth as a
kid out there, although he was not a Nazi anymore.
You know, the warned when he was fourteen. It's not
really on him, but like seeing that and being like
(11:53):
just knowing the history. This could just be a thing
that people had way back in the day before the Nazis,
or it could be a Nazi ranch like rural California,
equally likely.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
I looked it up. It's August twenty twenty two, the
Open Geographic Nemes Board confirmed that it would no longer
be called swastikamountains.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We did it, guys, We did it, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
They almost died on that hill.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Yeah, yeah, God bless Oregon. Finally, Yeah, making progress. Everybody
really got that knocked out before the election.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But that's like, it's so fascinating that you can look
at that now and actually truly not know. I mean,
you can honestly know if you have a dividing line
of time, but with these certain like products, you don't
have like such a definitive line that happens where you're like,
this is not Nazi shit, this is Nazi Nazi shit,
you know, and we can say that without any doubt.
(12:51):
It's just I had no idea.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, pretty cool stuff. So the use of the swastika
as a fashion icon had started to fade, albeit uneven,
by the end of the nineteen thirties, as this segment
from a ride up in Slate makes clear. One incident
in nineteen thirty six made that clear swastika motif receives
cold reception. Read a small headline in Women's Wear Daily
in nineteen thirty six, buttons crusted with swastika shown by
(13:15):
one couture house stirred up some comment among an audience
of New York buyers. The editors wrote, no sales of
this particular model are reported. Although no reason for this
chile response was given, it might be due to the
fact that many important New York department stores were owned
or founded by Jews, including b Altman, Bloomingdale's, Bergdorf Goodman,
Sax Fifth Avenue, and Macy's. Although the Women's Wear Daily
(13:36):
article left the designer of these buttons anonymous, Vogue also
reported on a fashion show featuring swastika buttons, identifying the
designer as Marcel rochas a well known French courtier. Unlike
Women's wear daily, Vogue found the use of the swastika
to be amusing rather than disturbing.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Now eslately telling me it wasn't co Kerschanel.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
There's a pretty I mean, like Coco. There's a pretty
good chance that Vogue had no problem at the swastika
because the people running it were pretty fucking racist and
kind of fans of the Nazis. They, along with many
other publications, were cautiously positive about Hitler in the lead
up to the war years. That same year, they ran
a spread showing the home decors of Hitler in his
(14:17):
mountain hideaway, including a prominent swastika cushion on his couch.
Slat says that this was an example of them humanizing
Hitler and trying to reinforce the domestic feel of the symbol.
They did also include a profile on British Prime Minister
Anthony Eden's house at the same time, so I don't know.
The article goes on. As late as nineteen thirty seven,
Good Housekeeping recommended creating a swastika out of cashews as
(14:38):
a cliver cake decoration. I know that's what I'm doing
my next birthday. Cashw swastika. Baby, Wow, you got a
nut allergy. That's a double problem right there.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, so I wonder if your local grocery store would
go ahead and pop one in frosting.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh, just going there, try, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Just going through my thirty seven issues of a Good
Housekeeping and uh yeah, they recommended this. Can you do
this cave for me?
Speaker 3 (15:06):
This is what I want.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
But in nineteen forty, the Boy Scouts finally decided they'd
had enough of the hook cross. At that year's jamboree
in Santiago, Chile, a vote was taken to abandon the
swastika due to the fact that Boy Scouts and Scout
leaders had been heckled and pelted with shit while marching
through streets with swastikas on their uniform And again, hard
to blame anyone in nineteen forty for seeing a bunch
(15:32):
of dudes in military style uniforms with white swastika. Isn't
going I'm gonna throw some stuff at those kids.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
It's two late boys. You gotta give up the symbol.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Might have to fuck up a Boy Scout over this.
The Boy Scout order of the white swastika was, of course,
never sacred, and neither was really the town name of Swastika, Ontario.
But all of this does create a very serious problem
for the Navajo, the Papago, the Pa and the Hope people,
all of whom had used the swastika or the the
(16:06):
whirling log in various works of religious significance since time immemorial. Right,
this is a religious symbol for them. It is not
as simple as just oh, this weird decoration or name
that we used is problematic. Now we got to change it,
right Like, this is a thing that is a part
of religious observances, you know. But after the Nazi invasion
(16:27):
of France, representatives from each of these tribes, the Navajo,
the Papago, the Apache, and the Hope sign a proclamation
on the whirling log symbol because the above ornament, which
has been a symbol of friendship among our forefathers for
many centuries, has been desecrated recently by another nation of peoples. Therefore,
it is resolved that henceforth, from this date and forevermore,
(16:48):
our tribes renounced the use of the emblem commonly known
today as the swastika on our blankets, baskets, art objects,
sand paintings, and clothing. Now I want you to really
think about that, right, because they've done nothing wrong and
the Whirling Log has done nothing wrong. They are choosing
(17:08):
to give up a sacred symbol because of something a
completely different group of people across the world have done
with a version of that symbol as an act of
solidarity with their victims. And I want to be clear,
I'm not saying like this is the right thing or
not doing this would have been the wrong thing, because
I don't think it would have been wrong if they'd said, look,
(17:30):
this is our religious symbol. We're not going to change
it just because of these assholes, right, I think that
would have been fine too. I'm just saying that's a
really noteworthy decision to matter, especially prior to Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
I think that's like it is, like you said, it
seems like an act of solidarity. We can't exactly know
what was going through their heads or their conversations, but
it does. I mean, what else could it be except
like we can no longer abide this, even if it's
like a huge important story in our culture. It's like,
what's more important is no longer allowing this symbol to
(18:04):
have a power that we don't consent to, Right, it's like,
no matter what. Now, I think it's it's obvious that this,
this horrible superpower has basically usurped the use of this
and it's just not going to Yeah, you know, it
just can no longer mean what it means to outsiders.
And maybe that would have been fine if it were
(18:25):
just like an internally used symbol, but yeah, what, it's
just like heartbreaking, it's really heartbreaking, very sack.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Yeah, I do have there might be a darker reason,
and I'm sure a number of things played into the
decision that they made. The darker part of my mind says, well,
maybe they were concerned they see what is gearing up,
and they think, like, well, if we go to war,
you know, this is forties is before the US is
in the war. But like if the United States goes
(18:50):
to war with the Germans, it might be dangerous for
us to like have this on shit, right, Like we
might fucking we might people, This might call some of
our people to get targeted, right. That may have also
been a factor. I don't that's certainly not like a
thing that they write out here. I do think it
was probably more just like a solidarity and also like, yeah,
(19:13):
just an acknowledgment of the I mean a lot of
Navajo people, a lot of Hope people. You know, a
lot of Apache people are going to wind up fighting
against the Nazis too, So yeah, it's anyway, it's a
remarkable moment and kind of I think worth acknowledging. So
we all know the next part of the story, right,
(19:33):
you got your World War two, the Nazis, you know,
you're doing some stuff, and then America, without anyone else's help,
wins the war, right you know, that's I think everyone's
familiar with the gist of the story. So during the
war years, it becomes dangerous to be associated with the
Nazis and the swastika. Laura Ingalls, a pilot and a
Nazi sympathizer, is put on trial in nineteen forty two
(19:57):
and her swastika bracelet is brought up as evidence of
for fascist leadings Ingles claims it was just an Indian
symbol for good luck, but she is convicted of failing
to register as an enemy agent, although her swastika bracelet
apparently didn't factor into this, but it does get brought
up in the trial. The war ends, the swastika gets
falls and as a political symbol. You know, it becomes
(20:20):
profoundly toxic, particularly after knowledge of the Holocaust becomes more widespread.
This leads to its disappearance from like, you know, anodyne
normal products that like a person would want to have
in their house. But it does not lead to its
disappearance from popular products. It just causes a change in
the kind of products that it shows up on. Stephen
(20:41):
Heller writes quote. It was used increasingly on paperback book
covers for spy and mystery yarns, and on covers for
men's pulp adventure magazines. Even today, the most common sanctioned
mainstream use of the mark is on jackets for fiction
and nonfiction books with World War Two themes. In the
late forties and fifties, the male public's fascination with things
Nazi was disturbingly fetishistic, and to an extent it still is.
(21:04):
Yet publishers knew what they were doing. From a marketing standpoint.
The swastika was such an identifiable icon, a magnet, so
to speak, that a browser could perceive content without ever
reading the title. It is indeed ironic that the swastika
has evolved from benevolent sign to sinister national emblem to
a veritable point of purchase display in only a few generations.
(21:24):
And he provides a really interesting example of this that
Svie's going to show you from the men's magazine World
of Men.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
We got the Girls, We got the Men.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
So you've got this big two thirds of it is
this illustration of like a Nazi He's sticking his bayonet
into a woman's a very blonde, white woman's breast. There's
a big swastika very visible on his bicep. There's another
swastika on this train behind him that's full of Nazi soldiers.
There's a woman behind her who's got like a strapless
(21:57):
shirt on that's like she looks like she's being taken
into custody or something like that by these Nazis. And
then the title of uh the the apparent story that
these pictures are for is lust slaves of Hitler's Walsap butcher.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh god, wow, the mistress demands soft flesh.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I was gonna say, that's one of the other big stories.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
There's a lot of great stories in this episode. Now, Chelsea,
I'm not a word cop, but I will say you
never need to use the phrase lust slaves. That's never
a necessary term. There's no need to ever use the
phrase lust slave.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
No, it should really be retired from Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
How to master today is sex Starved Woman?
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah? It's another article in World.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
You were with a Bayonet Avenue call Girl.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah, yeah, revealed sin capers have turned on co Ed's
Man World of Men. Yeah, because bloody horror.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Uh what an incredible magazine now the cover shows Yeah,
so it's great stuff. Now, when I saw this incredible magazine,
absolute work of historical art, I knew I had a
sacred duty to try and find a copy, and unfortunately
I couldn't. But the Internet archive does have a collection
of men's magazines from the fifties and sixties, and I
will promise you all we'll do a whole episode going
(23:23):
through some of these in the future because they look incredible.
Here's one cover that I just want to talk about.
It has nothing to do with Nazis, but it's glorious. Chelsea,
look at this, Sofie.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Let's see it.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
I'm sorry, chelsee Oh.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Teen Sororities, Schools for Free Love, Passion and Orgies exposed
suburban sex cults, how they operate Exclusive Beware the World
of Lust Without Love and it's like a picture of
a shake and there is a Nazi. Actually the swastika
is not fully visible, but there's like a shake and
a Nazi tying a woman in a red dress to
a palm tree, and she actually has pawns for the
(24:06):
reds shafts of steel.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's also a real picture of a woman on this
one up there.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
There is a real picture of a woman. She looks
like she is topless. I'm guessing these are kind of
playboy Yeah, yeah, she looks great.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
She looks great.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Helpless brides of the lash in Satan's hell.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
That's what I want. I want all that satanic panic content,
all that early sex cult panic. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
Look, these are there's problematic aspects of this, but I
think we can all agree the people who wrote these
titles used the English language in a way that is
unique and beautiful. Hey everyone, Robert here, As you've noticed,
my audio just took the dive in quality. That is
because my zoom recorder died forever, irrevocably while we were
(24:50):
recording this episode, and I did not notice it because
I was lost in the heat of the moment. Which
is also a pretty good song by the band Asia anyway,
I I don't know why my zoom died. Perhaps it
was the crypto fascists, you know, trying to stop this
episode from airing. Perhaps it was the Reds using the
crypto fascists as cover in order to stop my investigation
(25:11):
into their lust slave cartel. We'll never know, but I
do apologize. My audio for the rest of this episode
will be the Zoom safety audio we used and is
a slightly lower quality.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Yes, they definitely knew how to get attention. Are you
following with Jack Chick?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Oh? God, yes, absolutely, we just did.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
We just did a three parter on Jack Chick, The
King the Gohast.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It just reminds me a little bit, you know, totally
different like motivations, but very similar pulpy, you know, extreme content.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Jack Chick is actually the primary sponsor of this podcast.
So we're worried about going to hell because you've been
reading men's magazines from the nineteen fifties. You are to
come on and help you out right after this. Ah,
(26:07):
we're back, boy, My soul fields cleansed. Oh I'm not
even thinking about helpless Brides of the Lash and Satan's
Hell anymore, Chelsea.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
No, I've got a new Lord and Savior.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
A new Lord and Savior.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
I could look at these magazines for hours and we
will soon, don't worry, folks.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
I hope.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
So while the use of the swastika in Western nations
was confined to bad guys and entertainment media for decades,
elsewhere in the world it did have occasional resurgences. And
this brings us back to India. Now India again, it's
both pretty distant from Nazi aggression. The Nazis aren't really
a threat in the subcontinent, and it's also a place
(26:47):
where swastikas are a very popular religious symbol. One of
the weird things I spent months living in Northeast India,
primarily Delhi, and one of the things that was always
really I mean, at first, at least there's a week
two it was weird and then it became kind of normal.
It is like right in the front of like many houses,
there's just a swastika. Now it's not the same, like
(27:07):
it's reversed. There's usually like a series of dots and
stuff around it. But it's a very common decoration on
the front of houses. Now, the fact that the swastika
in you know, Hindu culture particularly has a history that
has nothing to do with the Nazis. Also has coexisted
the fact that there is a very complex modern history
(27:30):
of the Nazis in India and their relation to particular
like Hindu nationalists political parties. Because the Nazis fought against
the British Empire, a good number of Hindu nationalists were
willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. This
is compounded with the fact that popular Nazis spiritual philosopher
(27:51):
Saviitri Devi lived in India much of her life organized
with a lot of people who will be the political
precursors to the party that is the party of the
Prime Minister of India in Gramodi, who is very far
right and kind of even beyond this, the Nazis send
researchers to parts of the subcontinent with a group called
(28:12):
the Onanairb which is like a it is the group
doing a lot of like this occult research and stuff
and sort of the pre war Nazi era to kind
of investigate the origin point of the Aryans in India. Right,
So there's a lot of reasons why there's this kind
of like complex history of the Nazis within India.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Well, and Hiller really admired India. Yeah, you're like EuroAsia
sort of.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
You know, there's a makes sense, a complex history there,
and it's it's problematic at times. And part of what
makes it problematic is like, because of distance, there's not
really this sense of the immediacy of Hitler's crimes for
a lot of folks in that part of the world,
and this will cause some complicated problems. In the late
nineteen sixties, contemporaneous to an American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell,
(29:02):
an Indian Nazi party formed in New Delhi using the
German Hagenkroi as It's simple. It promised that if elected
to power, India would be the strongest power on the planet.
They failed to get any real support. The Indian Nazi
Party does not take off, but actual Nazi imagery retains
a sort of low key popularity in the subcontinent, alongside
(29:24):
the more traditional religious uses of the swastika, and some
of this contributed to the rise of a culture of
admiration for Hitler as a business guru within India. Hitler
is one of the best known sort of business influencers.
You might say Wow, this is a more complicated topic
than we're going to talk about today. But it's because
(29:46):
of this history, because you can find like management books
that are like management lessons from Hitler and stuff. If
you google around as a result of all this, if
you google around, you'll run into variations of the same story,
which is that some Indian business own owner who's kind
of mainly aware of like Hitler and the Nazis, as
a result of this weird kind of business influencer thing,
will open a store or a restaurant with very weird
(30:09):
and specific Nazi branding. It will get covered in a
news article, a lot of people will get angry, and
there will nearly always be a follow up interviewing the
owner of the store, who kind of seems befuddled that
anyone's pissed about this. Here's one example from a two
thousand and six New York Times article. Boonite Sablock, twenty
three years old, in a Novas restaurant tour, says he
(30:30):
wanted a catchy cafe name to sell his three to
four dollars plates of Christina Tono pear and ricotta salad
in panacotta, so he went with Hitler's cross. He put
a swastika in the logo. He named his restaurant Hitler,
saying Hitler is a catchy name. Everyone knows Hitler. Man.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
It's again. It's good marketing. I guess it draws eyes.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
I guess I know that it makes money, but it
does draw eyes. Yeah, I probably don't need to explain
that the local Jewish community was not thrilled with this.
Later in the article, Sablock is quoted as saying, I
never wanted to promote Hitler. I just wanted to promote
my restaurant.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Well, you know what that reminds me of is not
that far from where I live. There is a restaurant
called the Soup Nazi Kitchen, and you know that's honestly
a reference to Seinfeld. But it's like, bro, yeah, I
don't know, maybe it says Nazi in your name. It's
so weird.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Part of why these stories tend to blow up is
that India has a very large expat population of Israelis
a lot of young Israeli kids also travel there. In fact,
when I was living in Delhi, one of my friends
was this dude who had fled to India so he
wouldn't get drafted by the IDF. That same year, there
was a big blow up because a guy in Mumbai
opened a clothing boutique that was just named Hitler. The
(31:47):
pictures are pretty wild. It's like a high end mall
fashion store with a big glowing Hitler logo and there's
even a swastika and the dot on the eye. And
the owner of the shop, Rajah Shah, expressed shot that
people were angry. Telling the AFP, I didn't know how
much the name would disturb people. It was only when
the store opened I learned Hitler had killed six million people.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
What I lovedumb huh.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that's a real that's a real problem for you.
Speaker 3 (32:16):
Huh wow, it is.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
You know, very similarly, when I wanted to start this podcast,
the first name that I wanted to launch it, launch
it under was just Jeffrey Dahmer. Sophie had to inform
me that there was actually a problematic context with that name.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And what could that be.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
You know, Sophie actually appreciate is there somebody with that
name or something?
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Orbert Roberts trying to do a bit here. But he's
this is literally a factual story. I believe it.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
The Jeffrey Dahmer cast draw some eyes.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
You know, and and and our sales team was like, oh,
I don't know, we do a lot of meal kit services.
I don't know if well that'll go.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
An American horst. I mean, then we just get Dahmer
the TV show with.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I don't support his murders, but I am a big
fan of the way in which he used different spices.
You know. Look, you can divorce the man from from
the art. It should be the end of the bit.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
So let's go.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
This is all very dumb. No one should use Hitler
as a brand ambassador or try to divorce his management
secrets from his crimes more than he was a bad manager.
I was going to say, when for a good reason.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
It's not the boss, bitch. You think it's.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Not the boss, bitch. You think this is not a
thing a person should have to say, right. But it's
when we get back to the US, which has both
a large Jewish population and a lot of folks who
are descended from you know, who are who are Indian? Right?
Who are who are des he? You know, are Hindu
or a Buddhist. It's when we get here that things
get very messy because in India again very normal to
(33:56):
c swastikas. It is not a problem. You know, if
you've got that as a religious symbol, you know in
your house, you know, in your clothing and a decoration.
And obviously I don't think no reasonable person would ask
that a whole culture stop using a religious symbol because
of some assholes used a similar one. But it's a
little more complicated in the US, where you've got lots
(34:17):
of Holocaust survivors and their descendants who are going to
have a powerful gut reaction to skiing something like that.
My gut wants to say, Look, the Hindu swastika is
not the hogen KROI. It shouldn't be. We should be
able to like talk about this. But like it's also
not that simple, right, and this is not hope. I
don't want to come across let's lead into here. Neither
side's wrong here. I'm not going to come down like
(34:39):
condemning either group. This is like a really messy problem,
but it isn't It is interesting to me, and I
don't think enough people know that this is a a
thing that is an issue. So there have always been
a significant chunk of Indian people, of Hindu people, I
should say, because a lot of Indians are Muslim who
took umbrage at the thought that most of the world
(35:01):
had kind of tossed the swastika aside because of the Nazis.
In nineteen seventy nine, a Sanskrit scholar P. R. Sarkar
claimed that it was the symbol of permanent victory and
that like any symbol, it had positive and negative meanings.
His argument was that the right hand swastika was the
symbol of Vishnu, while the left hand, which is kind
of the one that the Nazis used, was the symbol
of Kali. Starting in the early nineteen nineties, with the
(35:23):
fall of the Soviet Union, Russian far right organizations and
other fascist political groups in the former Warsaw Pact nations
started to revive the swastika for different reasons. Obviously, for whatever.
For all of it's, you know, the different things that
were culturally problematic in the Soviet Union. One thing they're
good about is you're not allowed to display swastikas in
the Soviet Union. Right shouldn't have to explain why. But
(35:47):
once the Soviet Union falls, it because it had been
banned for so long, and because the right had been,
you know, in their eyes, suppressed for so long it
gets taken up as this symbol for all of these
different right wing national movements are trying to revive it.
And Stephen Heller writes here quote the Soviet Union and
Czarist Russia before it was riddled with anti Semitism. Similarly,
(36:07):
in the early nineteen nineties, there emerged a virulent strain
among ultra right wing groups calling for old fashioned pagrams
and new styled ethnic cleansing. While nestled on the fringe,
this decidedly organized milane of monarchist, neo fascist and pamat
are memory organizations openly hawked their ideologies on the street
until Boris Yeltsen's October nineteen ninety three emergency decrees banned
(36:28):
opposition media. Polemical newspapers with the titles Russia Arise the
Russian New Order in People's Business, featuring realistic drawings of
heroic looking black shirted Russian stormtroopers, scaprists, anti Semitic caricatures
and portraits of Adolf Hitler himself were unashamedly displayed at
sidewalk tables throughout Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Various iterations of
(36:49):
the swastika, sometimes combined with historic Russian folk iconography, were
also in full view. A visitor to Moscow reported that
it was impossible to walk a block without running into
at least one of these displays. And this will feed
into a lot of the issues that we have in
Ukraine and in Russia right now with different Nazi organizations.
Right this is where a lot of that has its
kind of origin point. And while it is coming back
(37:11):
into use in Eastern Europe, it is also starting to
get revived in the eighties and nineties in the United
States as a symbol for the right now. The swastika
has this really awkward position in US counterculture since the
end of the Second World War. The first place, obviously,
George Lincoln Rockwell attempts to bring it back with his
(37:32):
American Nazi Party, but that's always decidedly fringed. The first
kind of place where you see it commonly is biker gangs,
and specifically Hunter Thompson is actually the journalist who did
some of the first good reporting on this in his
book Hells Angels. But biker gangs in the post World
War two era form primarily out of like vets guys
who had never been able to integrate into post war society,
(37:55):
and a lot of them had fought Nazis, and they
had medals and helmets and other booty taken from the Germans,
some of which had swastikas which they would wear on
their like motorcycle gear, both to shock and to signal like, yeah,
I'm an outsider, I'm on the fringe, but I did
my time for my country too, So it's.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
Kind of a symbol of valor. At the same time,
it's a comp let's say, it's a complicated but that
was part of the intention at least was like not
like I am a Nazi, but I fought Nazis.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Yeah, yeah, part of the intentions some of them are Nazis.
And then we're getting to that, so that, yeah, this
means that a number of the first proto punk types,
because a lot of punk culture in the United States
says come out of these biker yeah war swastikas and
stall helms because they had fought Nazis. But also a
lot of these guys are violently anti communists, and so
(38:49):
it becomes complicated. Another group that wears the swastika commonly
in the nineteen sixties are surf bums, right, Like surf
bums have a lot of different swastik could get a
lot of early surfing equipment shops have swastikas or variations
of Nazi iconography in their logos. It is not uncommon
in the sixties, and a lot of this kind of
(39:10):
translates to some of the first punks in the nineteen seventies,
some of whom are Nazis and some of whom are
just trying to like trigger people.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Like transgressive behavior.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:22):
In the book Subculture the Meaning of Style, author Dick
Hebridge relates that one female punk explained to him, punk's
just like to be hated for sure.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Sure, it's the quickest way to get hated.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so there's all these weird like
surf brands and early skating brands that will use pieces
of Nazi iconography and will claim they don't have far
right sympathies. Some of them do and like become part
of you know, kind and some of them don't and
are just kind of being edge lords. You know, we
didn't have that term at the time. But all of
this is mixed, and the people who are just kind
(39:56):
of being edge lords, do it's fair to criticize provide
cover to the actual straight up Nazis, you know, they
provide sort of space for this to get accepted among
people that allows some recruitment. This is all happening alongside
a surge in the late eighties early nineties and actual
Nazi organizing and the establishment of groups like White Aryan
(40:17):
Resistance who ape aspects of a punk aesthetic, you might
say pseudo ironic use of the swastika gives cover two
real Nazis. Now, all of this makes the issue of
Hindu people, of Buddhists, of Native Americans in the United
States and elsewhere in the West trying to reclaim the
swastika very complicated, right because you do you get people
(40:40):
who are you know, Hindu or Buddhists being like, I
should be able to utilize this symbol that is a
religious symbol for me, that's a cultural symbol that I saw,
you know, as a kid, and you have you do
have you know, members of different indigenous tribes who'd use
the swastika, some whom are saying like, well, maybe we
should be able to go back to it. Now. It
has been like nearly andred years like, we feel like
(41:01):
we did our bit here and this is complex. I'm
going to quote from a twenty twenty two ap News
article here. It sort of sets up the stakes, she telled.
Dio was shocked when she got a letter from her
Queen's apartment building's co op board calling her Dwali decoration
offensive and demanding she take it down. My decoration said
happy d Wali and had a swastika on it, said Dio,
(41:22):
a physician who was celebrating the Hindu Festival of Lights.
Doo believes she and people of other faiths should not
have to sacrifice or apologize for a sacred symbol simply
because it has often conflated with its tainted version. To me,
that's intolerable, he said. And like, yeah, that's a fair point.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, absolutely, Well, now they're fighting against nineties edge lords
who are like spray painting it at the skate park
to be like, oh, look at this, like you know.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
This is complex, yeah, very And Among the people who
had issue with Dio's display for Duali decoration was Shelley Wernick,
who was the managing director of the Jewish Federation's Holocaust
Survivor Carowing and she points out that seeing a swastika
at home or out and about can be re traumatizing
for elderly survivors, which is also a fair point.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
But yeah, of course seeing that in any.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Context really mess you up. You know, I nobody's I don't.
I'm not. There's not like any no one's in the
wrong here, right, I'm not like to take out This
is complicated. You know what else is complicated? Chelsey?
Speaker 3 (42:28):
What is that?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
The moral dimensions of advertising products and services in order
to support a podcast?
Speaker 3 (42:36):
You're telling me, huh huh.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
And that's why we're just gonna ignore it. Here's some ads. Ah,
we're back and uh, feeling good, feeling good. So one
of the people quoted, and that really quite fatating AP
(43:01):
News article is a New York based Buddhist priest who
was disturbed when he heard somebody at an inner faith
conference called the swastika the universal symbol of evil. And
whatever your stance on the matter is, that simply can't
be correct, right like this is still there's like a
billion or more people for whom this is still a
religious symbol. Hitler doesn't have the power to make that
(43:22):
a universal symbol of evil, right Like that is I
think a bad way to phrase it. Widely recognized as
a symbol of evil is true because a lot of
people do recognize it this way. You know that anyway
complicated this Buddhist the Reverend T. K. Nakagaki wrote a
book in twenty eighteen called the Buddhist Swastika in Hitler's Cross,
Rescuing a symbol of peace from the forces of hate.
(43:45):
And one thing that he points out, because he's a
big advocate of we should call the symbol that is
sacred to all these different peoples the swastika or you know,
presumably when you talking about like the Navajo, you would
use the term the whirling log. But when we refer
to the Nazi of the symbol, we should call it
the hagen Kroi. Right. And one thing he points out
that I was unaware of is that in newspapers across
(44:07):
the United States the Nazi cross was referred to as
the hagen Kroi until the early nineteen thirties when they
use the term swastika. Now I get his point here.
I don't think that that's like necessarily wrong, but it
is worth noting that the Nazis call it out a
swastika a lot of the time too, like it is
being used by them at that point in time. And
(44:27):
I to be quite frank, at this point, I don't
know how you get people to stop in the West
to associate hagen Kroi with the Nazis, but not swastika,
like you have an easier time with like whirling LG.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Right, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Now there are legitimate harms that all of this causes
for members of faiths who have done nothing wrong. In California,
public the display of the swastika has been criminalized. There
are exceptions for this, including the sacred swastika used by Hindus,
but it does not called the illegal swastika a Hagenkroi
and instead uses the term swastika, which could confuse law enforcement,
(45:06):
might conceivably lead to problems. Even the worry of this
itself could cause a chilling effect on religious expression. Quote
Pushpita Prasad, a spokesperson for the Hindu group, called it
a victory, but said the legislation unfortunately labels both Hitler's
symbol and the sacred one as swastika's. This is not
just an esoteric battle, Prissad said, but an issue with
real life consequences for immigrant communities whose members have resorted
(45:29):
to self censoring. Vickas Jane, a Cleveland physician, said that
he and his wife hid images containing the symbol when
their children's friends visited because they wouldn't know the difference.
Jane says he stands in solidarity with the Jewish community,
but is sad that he cannot freely practice his Jane
faith because of this lack of understanding. He noted that
the global Jaane symbol has a swastika in it, but
(45:51):
in the United States, the Jain community has deliberately removed
the swastika from its seal. Jane wishes that people would
differentiate between their symbol of thas piece and Hitler's swastika,
just as they do with the hateful burning cross symbol
in Christianity's sacred Crucifix, which I think is a really
good thing.
Speaker 3 (46:06):
That is a really good point.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Certain uses of the Christian cross are definitely offensive and frightening,
but we don't say nobody should be wearing a crucifix, right,
you know. Now, there's also a growing movement in some
indigenous circles to end the year's long prohibition on their
use of the swastik or the worling log. The consternation
over this by some Jewish organizations is understandable, as is
(46:30):
the desire of people to return to their use of
the symbol. Again, no one's wrong here. You know, it's complicated,
And I'm going to continue with a quote from that
AP article. For the Navajo people, the symbol shaped like
a swirl represents the universe in life, said Patricia Ann Davis,
an elder at the choctaw Ina Dina is the term
for the Navajo people that is actually used by them
(46:52):
for themselves. It was a spiritual, esoteric symbol that was
woven into the Navajo rugs until Hitler took something good,
beautiful and made it twisted, she said. And I think
again I want to say here, I'm not saying either
that like Jewish organizations have like a black and white
necessarily view about this. Again, there's a lot of appreciation
(47:12):
on both sides about what a complex and thorny problem
this is. And I don't think anyone's really behaving unreasonably here.
Jeff Kellman, a New Hampshire Holocaust historian, often lectures to
Jewish community organizations about the fundamental differences between the swastika
and the Hockencroix, and he told the AP he feels
like his message about the possibility of redeeming the symbol
(47:34):
has gained recent ground among many Jewish survivors and descendants
of survivors. Quote, when they learn an Indian girl could
be named Swastika and she could be harassed in school,
they understand how they should see these as two separate symbols.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
He said.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
No one in the Jewish community wants to see Hitler's
legacy continue to harm people. One of the people quoted
in that article is gret At Elbagin. She's an eighty
five year old Holocaust survivor whose grandmother and cousins died
at Auschway were murdered at Outwards, and she says she
was surprised to learn about the symbols. Past Elbagin was
born in nineteen thirty eight, when the Nazis forcibly annexed
(48:09):
Austrian She went into hiding with relatives in Hungary and
immigrated to the US in nineteen fifty six and became
a social worker. This new knowledge about the swastika, Elbergin said,
feels liberating. She no longer fears a symbol that was
used to terrorize. Hearing that the swastika is beautiful and
sacred to so many people is a blessing. She said.
It's time to let go of the past and look
into the future. And I'm not saying that that's the
(48:32):
only way to think about it either. If you're on
the side of this is like a person who is
a descendant of Holocaust survivors going like, I don't feel
comfortable with this. That's perfectly reasonable too. This is like, again,
is very complicated.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
What all this speaks to is like the just the
incredible power of symbols right to the human race. It's
just so amazing that this same or like a riff
on a similar symbol can mean both good luck and
this huge hero's journey and this powerful religious story. While
(49:06):
on the other hand, it's a symbol of actual mass
murder and horror and death, but it's the same symbol.
It's just the power that we have as humans to
project onto that whatever we need to or want to
or believe and accept the symbols that are given to
us by people in power who have a you know,
(49:26):
an idea about what the symbol can mean and what
it can do. It's wild.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Yeah, there's a lot covid on here. So I just
wanted people to be aware of that, not to take,
you know, one side or the other or not that
the sides I presented are the only ways to feel
about this. This is a tremendously complicated thing to think about,
but it is worth thinking about. This is something you
(49:52):
should as just as a person, not even as just
like somebody's who's Jane. There's somebody who's you know, Navajo,
somebody who's Jewish that you should be thinking about, but
just as like a human being, because this is one
way or the other, regardless of where you land, This
is everyone symbol. It is universal to the human race
more or less.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Right.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It appears everywhere every place in the world, and it
always has.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
And it always has everywhere. That is so wild. It
was in Ohio, it.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Was Ohio, It's all over It's in China. God, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
Swastika.
Speaker 1 (50:28):
I'm not over that swastika Oregon. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
It's so hard because you can't be in solidarity with
everyone in this situation. I mean, you can try to
be by just.
Speaker 1 (50:39):
Si solidarity for like, wow, this is messy.
Speaker 3 (50:41):
Yeah, and I'd say that's the best way to have
solidarity is just to say, like, I actually can't say
the answer. I can't say that I can respect everyone
in this situation. He's trying to like make a better
world through either readopting a symbol or making it disappear.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
It's like, I think it's probably the kind of thing
where the only real solutions are ad hoc. You know,
if you've got a situation where members of you know,
a local Jewish community and you know, sitting down with
members of like a Jane community or whatever, and they're
they're talking about how to allow, you know, how to
have the symbol expressed in its original religious meaning in
(51:19):
a way that's not going to make people uncomfortable. That's
fine if you've got you know, somebody wants to display
Dwally thing in their apartment building, and there's an elderly
Holocaust survivor and they decide, well, I guess we won't
put this outside because it might scare this this elderly person,
and like we don't want to do that. I think
that's also reasonable. I think if another thing happened, there's
not I don't have I don't have like a clear
(51:42):
there's the wrong or the right thing to do here.
This is just like one of the legacies of you know,
World War Two, but also just a thing that human
beings always have to deal with, is the Yeah, I
know it's complicated, very complicated. Should be aware that it's
a thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:02):
Absolutely. I am so happy that this was the topic
that I got because I just I can't believe I
didn't know this. I'm absolutely just shocked and awed at
all of this.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah, if you want a really good book on the subject,
the swastika symbol Beyond Redemption question Mark by Stephen Heller,
very readable. Whenever this comes up, whenever there's an issue
of like somebody displays the swastika for religious reason and
it causes like a conflict, Stephen usually gets interviewed by
like the journalists writing about it because he's just like
(52:32):
the guy who writes about this very good book. I
do recommend it if you're interested in more detail.
Speaker 3 (52:40):
Anyway, Chelsea, get anything to plug, sure, I mean, I'm
just you know what, I will specifically plug an episode
of my podcast American Hysteria called Astrology and the series
we did because it deals with not only astrologers as
they existed in the White House and advising for me,
which is a yes, yep, you know, you know, But
(53:03):
it also goes into how the Nazis used astrologers as
like secret agents as well to sort of push propaganda,
and that just seems like kind of in the same
vein of this this series here and yeah, American Asterria,
you can find it anywhere. We study moral panics, urban legends,
conspiracy theories and how they've affected American history.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Oh yeah, yeah, well you can find me right here.
You can find my novel After the Revolution wherever books
are sold. Just type After the Revolution into any book thing,
or again, screech it from the top of your lungs
while waving some sort of carved war club at the
guy who runs the Barnes and Noble, you know, or
(53:45):
Applebee's or sorry yeah, or Applebee's whatever.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
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