What’s with the fascination?

I was scrolling through my various coin groups online and came across a sale of nazi coins, all with swastikas. I was disappointed to see that in only one hour, the post had 10 bids and I’ve noticed that this genre of coin sells really, really well in the US. The seller listed the coins as all bearing “the mark of the dreaded German war machine.” I personally find the post and unsettling and am bothered by the strange affiliation for this in the US. Not sure if I’m in the minority, but just wanted to vent. Thanks for listening.

 

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We need exposure to all history. The bad things that happened are supposed to be used as guides to reduce repeat failures of civilization. Protecting the current generation from real history does more harm than good.

 

For thousands of years, in other eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism etc) as well as some African and American cultures, the swastika (clockwise rotation) meant prosperity and good fortune, The suawastika (anti-clockwise) symbolised night or the tantric aspects of Kali.
Sadly ,nowadays it appears to signify only one thing.

 

Sure, but that's not at all what I'm talking about. Though to your point, calling it "the mark of the dreaded German war machine" rewrites history to omit that it was also the "mark of the totalitarian regime that systematically murdered millions of men, women, and children." The post I saw fails to reflect our history properly.

I'm not against owning them, or displaying them, I'm against those who present the swastika in a positive light, and those that claim they buy them for "historical value" but only buy German WWII items with swastikas while neglecting all the others.

Absolutely, even here in the US, it was a good luck symbol and could be found on numerous good luck coins. Unfortunately, the German Empire took the symbol and used it as their banner for evil. And more unfortunately, that evil banner draws a lot of eager attention in the US.

 

Absolutely.

 

Apparently, collecting coins from our biggest adversary in the worst World War isn't acceptable.

So, lets melt all of them.

Same with the CCCP, Fascist Italy, and might as well do the US as well since we caused the trail of tears. Oh, and Japan. And Armenia. And Mongolia, since Genghis Khan was a thing. He and his soldiers raped women en masse. What about the Romans? or any other nation that has ever conquered anything or tried to eradicate a race or group of people?

Pretty sure absolutely no one DOESN'T know about the genocide.

Whatever you say sounds like both a political jab and a massive misrepresentation if you ask me.

 

These symbols appear on the wrought iron railing surrounding the veranda at the West Baden Springs Hotel near French Lick Indiana. The original hotel was built in 1852 and remodeled in 1902. Sometime in the last 10 years they have been covered up.

 

I served in a little berg in Germany in the late 1970's and one Saturday afternoon I actually found a little German coin shop and purchased one WWII era piece just to have a piece of that history in my coin collection. Do you know that the MP's confiscated that piece from me in Frankfurt when I declared it flying back home?

At any rate, I don't know that there is a fascination per se with the swastika. It does represent pure evil to those of us familiar with the history. My daddy in law carried German shrapnel in his back until the day he died fighting for what is right...... But we are now several generations removed from that evil and what it represented. I don't know that younger folks today really have a genuine appreciation for what it represented. They likely see the imagery on titillating websites or perhaps read a chapter in a history book at school so they want one.... I sure hope it isn't a genuine fascination. All they need do is take a tour of the Holocaust Museum in DC and they will get over that fascination rapidly.

 

People are fascinated with WWII and nazis and Hitler. Not sure why, I guess because it's interesting. I don't think it means people want to be nazis. I myself have some of these coins. Maybe it feels like owning contraband, though it's not.
It's not just coins - The Man in the High Castle was a popular show, and History Channel used to air those WWII shows that my uncle used to watch almost 24 hours a day, before Pawn Stars and the Pickers took over. Tons of books too.

I will say that the listing you show is silly - "the dreaded German war machine"... is that on facebook or something?

 

You can’t have a collection of German coins without the nazi era issues, much worse are the Russian coins from the Stalin era as he was a butcher of the highest order. Even my own country the UK has particular coins from a bad period of history (Richard III) but we still collect them.

 

If you are stamp collecting or coin collecting Germany you will have a large hole in your collection if you leave out Hitler and Nazi themed issues.

 

This is on the building that houses the Athens Numismatic Museum

 

If you can't see it, it never happened?

 

The swastika motif is found in some traditional Native American art and iconography. Historically, the design has been found in excavations of Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys, and on objects associated with the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex (S.E.C.C.). It is also widely used by a number of southwestern tribes, most notably the Navajo, and plains nations such as the Dakota. Among various tribes, the swastika carries different meanings. To the Hopi it represents the wandering Hopi clan; to the Navajo it is one symbol for the whirling log (tsin náálwołí), a sacred image representing a legend that is used in healing rituals. A brightly coloured First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.

Before the 1930s, the symbol for the 45th Infantry Division of the United States Army was a red diamond with a yellow swastika, a tribute to the large Native American population in the southwestern United States. It was later replaced with a thunderbird symbol.

The town of Swastika, Ontario, Canada, and the hamlet of Swastika, New York were named after the symbol.

From 1909 to 1916, the K-R-I-T automobile, manufactured in Detroit, Michigan, used a right-facing swastika as their trademark.

 

Shame they confiscated the coin. I don’t support that. My experience in the VA area tells me that people are definitely fascinated with them, and people of particular demographics (age, gender, race). I’m not sure what draws the fascination, and I’m not personally against people owning historic pieces, but I find it concerning when people only collect those German coins and ignore all other time periods in Germany, as well other WWII countries. I also dislike comments that attempt to construe the nazi hate symbol as something positive.

This post has turned into a “defend the swastika” effort. Can’t say I’m surprised, just disappointed people missed the intent of my post, and aren’t actually responding to what I wrote.

 

Cool photo, but what does this have anything to do with me posting about Americans glorifying nazi coinage?

 

I don't think anyone is construing its use at that period of time as positive. Rather, pointing out that an image with millennia of history and positivity behind it, was degraded into something negative.

 

No one is defending the swastika...

:eyeroll:

 

Yeah, I agree - I don't see what listing all the times swastikas have been used in history before Nazi Germany has anything do with discussing Nazi coins with swastikas on them.
It's like if I made a thread asking why US coins all have eagles on them, then people started posting random facts about eagles that have nothing to do with US coins.

 

It's hard to believe that discussions about swastikas still stir up partisan political outrage these eighty years later, but here we are. In this decade, it often centers around who has the right to be outraged, or more accurately, who has the right to demand others stop outraging them. Difficulty: sometimes you should be outraged.

I've seen some terrible outcomes from threads about current or historic political symbols. I hope this thread doesn't repeat them.