GENEVA (AP) — Finland’s Air Force, now part of NATO, still flies swastikas on a handful of unit flags — but is preparing to phase them out, largely to avoid awkwardness with its Western allies.
The history of the Finnish air force’s use of the swastika, which since the 20th century has largely been associated with Nazi tyranny and hate groups, is more complex than at first appearance. It is an ancient symbol and Finland's air force began using it many years before the birth of Nazi Germany.
Change has been underway for years. A swastika logo was quietly pulled off the Air Force Command’s unit emblem a few years ago. But swastikas have remained on some Finnish air force flags, raising eyebrows among NATO allies, tourists and other foreigners who spot them at military events.
“We could have continued with this flag, but sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors. It may be wise to live with the times, Col. Tomi Böhm, the new head of Karelia Air Wing air defense force, was quoted as saying in a report Thursday by the public broadcaster YLE.
A bad look for a new NATO member
The Defense Forces, in an email to The Associated Press on Friday, said a plan to renew the air force unit flags was launched in 2023, the year Finland joined NATO, but said it was not linked to joining the alliance. The aim, it said, was “to update the symbolism and emblems of the flags to better reflect the current identity of the Air Force.”
It referred to an article in daily Helsingin Sanomat on Friday, which said the reason for the removal was a perception that the swastika has been an “embarrassing symbol in international contexts.”
Finland, which shares a long border with Russia, joined NATO in April 2023 over concerns related to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Teivo Teivanen, a professor of world politics at the University of Helsinki, said the flags in question were introduced in the 1950s and today are flown by four Air Force units.
The Air Force and the Finnish public generally had for years insisted the swastikas used in Finland’s air force “have nothing to do with the Nazi swastika,” said Teivanen, who this month had a book published whose Finnish title translates as “History of the Swastika.”
But now, following Finland’s integration with NATO, policymakers have decided “there’s now a need to get more integrated with the forces of countries like Germany, the Netherlands, and France — countries where the swastika is clearly a negative symbol," he said.
Teivanen said that in 2021, German air force units bowed out of a final ceremony following exercises at a military base in Finland’s Lapland region after learning that the Finnish swastikas would be on display.
A symbol used for more than a century
Finland's air force adopted the swastika emblem in 1918 soon after country gained its independence after more than a century of Imperial Russian rule.
Count Eric von Rosen of neighboring Sweden donated Finland's first military plane in 1918, which bore his personal symbol, the swastika.
The Finnish air force soon after adopted a blue swastika on a white background as the national insignia on all its planes from 1918 to 1945. After the war, the imagery remained for decades on some Air Force unit flags and decorations as well as on the insignia of the Air Force Academy.
But that doesn't mean there is no Nazi connection at all.
Von Rosen, an aristocratic explorer and ethnographer, was the brother-in-law of Hermann Goering, a decorated World War I German fighter pilot who became an early Nazi Party member. Goering went on to lead Germany’s Luftwaffe during World War II under Hitler.
The Finnish air force stressed that its use of the symbol had no connection to Nazi Germany, although Finland entered into a reluctant alliance with the Third Reich during World War II.
New flags — featuring an eagle — will be published when the work has been completed and the flags are introduced into use for events like parades and local ceremonies, the Defense Forces said, without saying when that would happen.
“The traditional Von Rosen swastika emblem, in use since 1918, has already been removed from most other Air Force emblems during earlier reforms, so its removal from the unit flags is a logical continuation of this work,” the emailed statement said.
