Swastikas - Part 4

 

The previous parts of this post have looked at the use of the swastika before and after the adoption of that ancient good luck symbol by the Nazis.  

Before looking at the final instalment –postcards featuring swastikas – I will briefly mention another local example of the swastika use as a good luck symbol. My son, Thomas, a budding lawyer who works with in my office, and I travelled to the south coast on business. On the way back we stopped off at the Nan Tien Temple at Berkeley (near Port Kembla), about 80 kilometres south of Sydney. It is the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern hemisphere and displays swastikas in various locations, including on the chests of the giant Buddha statues:

Part of the Nan Tien Temple

Before its demonisation by the Nazis, the swastika was often featured on postcards as a good luck symbol. The following examples are from around the early 1900’s:

The Nazis, not unsurpisingly, also had swastika postcards . . .

but there have been attempts to rehabilitate the swastika. . .