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My older uncle (who was a teenager during the much of the 1940s) told me that Finnish youngsters idolizing the German airforce pilots and regarding them as heroes wasn't particularly uncommon during WWII. They didn't have a clue as to what went on in the concentration camps, of course.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde
by NordicStorm (m<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Wed Aug 15th, 2007 at 05:30:17 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The link Finland - airforce led me to check up the Finnish swastika:

I knew it was used by the Finnish airforce during ww2:

And this is the story behind it:

The Swedish count Eric von Rosen gave the Finnish White government a Thulin Typ D aircraft.[...]

Von Rosen had painted his personal good luck charm on the Thulin Typ D aircraft, which was a blue swastika. This was to become the insignia of the Finnish Air Force. The white circular background was created when the Finns tried to paint over the Thulin air academy advertisement.[3] The swastika was officially taken into use after an order by Mannerheim on March 18, 1918. The FAF had to change the swastika insignia after 1945, due to an allied control commission decree, where all swastikas had to be abandoned. However, the original swastika can still be found in regimental flags and medals, especially in the air force.

wikipedia of course

So it predated the German one. Swastikas was just one of those things that were popular during that period.

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by A swedish kind of death on Wed Aug 15th, 2007 at 10:04:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
And here is another tidbit from wikipedia

The United Kingdom declared war on Finland on December 6, 1941, but did not participate actively in the Continuation War.

Which is a perfectly good falsification of the thesis that democratic nations don't have wars with each other.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Wed Aug 15th, 2007 at 10:42:44 AM EST
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