“We could have continued with this flag, but sometimes awkward situations can arise with foreign visitors,” said Air Force commander Colonel Tomi Bohm, acknowledging that “it may be wise to live with the times."
The Air Force was founded in Finland in 1918 and the symbol has been on flags used at ceremonial occasions. That is the year that Finland declared independence from Russia. The symbol was part of the anti-communist efforts of Erik von Rosen, a Swedish aristocrat. Von Rosen painted it on a plane that was part of the beginning of the national Air Force, though he later became affiliated with the Nazis.
The swastika has been going the way of the Dodo for years and the Finnish Air Force removed the symbols from their uniforms by 2020, but now it's finally being erased forever. The new flag, say commanders, will be more in line with the Air Force's "current identity," reports The New York Times.
The new symbol will be a golden eagle over a blue circle surrounded by wings, no swastika in sight. Finland has even considered adopting laws to ban the public display of the symbol, which Germany has already done, along with other European countries.
The swastika symbol is sacred in some eastern religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. A similar symbol, the manji, was used in Japanese mapmaking, but that was stopped ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics to prevent confusion due to the similarity.
