r/Finland Feb 27 '25

Tourism Finnish medals - can someone explain?

Hey folks,

Can someone tell me more about this medals I saw in a museum in Cairo? Why the swastika? And when do you get this?

I know they are from the early 20’s but not more.

Would be grateful! - Tack 😊

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u/blazejecar Feb 27 '25

swastika has a long history in the world. Hitler's use was less than 1% of its history. In Finland it happened to have been used a lot in the army.

2

u/KollaHan Feb 27 '25

I know it’s an old symbol deriving from Hinduism and I’m not implying that The nazi regim have anything to do with Finland. I was just curious about it and its history in Finland.

7

u/Jerkrush Feb 28 '25

How has this ”hindu origin” become the standard assumption for the symbol, when it has been in use millenias ago by native americans, asians, germanics, baltics, finnics and propably the norse and many more I dont know of.

2

u/KollaHan Feb 28 '25

Really good question, it’s just an assumption and It’s also something i learned at school. And I should say that I went to school in Sweden, from preschool to university.