Most people tend to associate the swastika with the rise of the Third Reich, coming into being with the formation of the National Socialist Deutsche Arbeit Party (NAZI) in the early 1920s. It would become a symbol of hate two decades later as the Wehrmacht rampaged over Europe, committing all sorts of war crimes and atrocities in the name of Aryan supremacy.
In point of fact the left-facing swastika, referred to as the Sauvastika, was used as early as World War I, adorning some but not all aircraft of the Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte, the German Air Force, which was subordinate to the Army and the Kaiser.
In Buddhism, the left-facing sauwastika is often imprinted on the chest, feet, palms of images of various Buddhas. It is also the first of the 65 auspicious symbols on the footprint of the Buddha. In Hinduism it is often associated with esoteric tantric practices and often stands for Goddess Kali.
Its not at all clear why some members of the WWI-era Deutsche Luftstreitkräfte employed the sauvastika on the sides of their aircraft and others chose to avoid it or if its use in the Great War helped to sway Adolf Hitler when he decided to adopt it as the symbol of the Nazi Party. Corgi’s upcoming Dridecker features the sauvastika, or left facing swastika, prominently on the sides of the fuselage and is due to arrive in early April. Politics aside, we’ll leave it up to you to decide if it has a place in the annals of aviation history.
