steven heller--tilting at swastikas

steven heller is a graphic designer, and a jew, with a place in his heart for the swastika. he wrote an essay on his unorthodox feelings for the sign in which he asks if its use by the nazi party before and during world war two has made it a symbol beyond redemption. or, can a generation of people who have been taught to see only the soul symbol of the nazis when they see a swastika ever see other swastikas as symbolic of something else?

heller has spent some time reading the writings of others on the swastika and before answering his question he summarizes the evidence historians have discovered about the sign. where it was used, and the meanings it had attached to it over its millenia long use by various people and cultures.

the original source of the sign may not be known and what object it represents in graphic shape is disagreed on by historians, though it seems they all think it was something familiar to the cultures that used it. some of the things suggested by the historians are a stylized solar circle, or a lunar disc, an octopus with its eight arms clasped two by two in prayer or a conch shell, maybe even a diagram of a sacred fire making drill.

he explains that the sign has been used for over two thousand years and while the meaning may have changed during such a long time one of the meanings it may of had seems to be luck or good fortune, something like a four leaf clover or rabbits foot. much the way it continues to be used in some non-euroese cultures to this day. heller goes on to explain how these earlier innocent meanings flow into the adoption of a tilted-swastika in a circle by the nazis as a symbol of aryan purity, and speculates on how this use contributed to the suppression of such an eye-pleasing graphic design.

he concludes with the ongoing battle between neo-nazi groups on one side who use the tilted swastika balanced on a corner, as a symbol of aryan superiority; and on the other side new age groups who want to revive the use of the other swastika--sitting flat on one of the bent arms--by educating people who only know of the nazi swastika about the old meanings of luck and good fortune they believe it had to begin with.

and then heller answers the question he asked in the title of his essay.

steven heller, the swastika: symbol beyond redemption?