I am working on a project that includes WW1 and WW2 as well as The Cold War, and I understand its in very poor taste to include certain German symbolism (The swastika) and other such things...

Since we are an international community I wanted to know what is good and what is bad to include in such a thing. As I understand it there are even laws in Germany regarding video games and movies and WW2 symbolism....

I don't want to step on any toes. I also don't want to open up political debate.
I'm Jewish I don't take offense to the Swastika myself nor does the image of Hitler cause me to run and hide a good deal of time when playing WW2 games I play Germany. But I realize all to well the Atrocities of war not only that I do not wish to step on any culture's toes. Can someone give me a run down of whats ok and and whats not ok?

In my opinion historical acuracy demands that these potentialy offensive materaials be included and I think most people would agree so long as they are presented in historicaly accurate ways. I doubt seriosly that anyone in germany who downloaded and played such a Mod would ever come to grief because of the laws their which are obviosly oriented towards supressing Neo-Natzis not harrasing gaming geeks like ourselves. If theirs enough of a desire for a "politcaly correct" version of a mod then shure provide an alternative version for thouse who need it but definantly put all the taboo stuff in the Offical version.

P.S. Boy you have a lot on you plate Ket, a fudal Japan mod, a WW2 mod and the XL composite mod too. Pace yourself, unless that is your a machine like Lopez.

Well, .... I am not a machine that is for sure. I am though an insomniac. I have horrible sleeping problems. Plus my job right now is only 20 hours a week, killer pay rate but only 20 hours a week. I used to spend a good deal of my time playing MMO's and worked for EA-Austin(Origin) for a good period of time, but then the .COM bubble burst in Austin and I'm just a N-Tier/PHP/SQL/Web Slave :)

Oh how the mighty have fallen... But this gives me a chance to learn XML (I now do all of my modeling in XML and am in love with the Altova suit of programs). Starting to grasp C++ thanks to you and Lopez mostly and getting a feel for Python. My girlfriend though she wants to kill Sid... And Blizard (Strange story though I got to work with Sid's old business partner out at Microprose Andy Hollis on an EA project that was killed way early in its development (Harry Potter Online))

I did music but my sound card exploded and I'm very picky about the sound card I use (none of this sound blaster crap)...
http://etechtimes.com/files/darkness_from_a_light_star.mp3
(An Original)
http://etechtimes.com/files/mashup.mp3
A mashup mix I did

So I have a good deal of time on my hands, and I seem to be able to put things together well. I'm honestly hoping both
Century of War and Shogun can turn into "Team Projects"
And XL would never have happened if it was not for You, Roamty, GRM

Chances are I need sleeping pills :)

'] P.S. Boy you have a lot on you plate Ket, a fudal Japan mod, a WW2 mod and the XL composite mod too. Pace yourself, unless that is your a machine like Lopez.

wow you are currently involved in all those projects. Good luck and great job on the work you did so far.:goodjob: :clap:

I have to agree with Impaler, the official version should contain the accurate symbolage. Ofcourse you are going to get some squares that complain, but those are the same people that make a fuss any time this topic is mentioned.

Some people want to act like WW2 didn't happen, or if it did, that somehow Nazi's weren't in it or didn't use the swastika. But they were and did, so if someone is to make a accurate scenario or mod, they have to include these real life things.

Good WW2 mods have swasticas, nazis, and hitler, to do otherwise is to make an inferior product and rewrite history. If we start censoring hitler from mods, next it will be Stalin since he did kill just about as people as hitler did. Then it will be slavery, the confederate flag, and the south removed from Civil War mods.

No! These things happened. They are a part of all of our history.We can not start leaving them out of our mods and our thoughts because they make people sad or uncomfortable. They are suppose to make us feel sad or angry, they are evil people that commited horendus acts and must always remember they happen, lest history repeat itself.

On the whole I think the mod playing community as a whole is smart enough to realize it is just a game, and while there may be a few people that would never dream of playing a game as Hitler Germany, I know alot of us would enjoy wipeing them from the map. :)

I for one did a small no-swastikas add-on for wwii:sf&b:
http://img239.imageshack.us/img239/6753/ger8eu.th.png (http://img239.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ger8eu.png)
for those whove got problems with history. I also replaced the unit-flag, and other swastikas used in the mod with that one.

Ofcourse you are going to get some squares that complain, but those are the same people that make a fuss any time this topic is mentioned.

I think his concern is that, if I recall correctly, there are laws against that kind of content in Germany. If he includes swastika, it could be illegal for a German player to play his mod. It's a little more than someone simply whining about there being a swastika. Not everyone likes to break laws.

Deja:

Exactly, I know when I was at EA we had export restrictions on of all things "Blood Content" for the German market...

I'd love to get a german take on this...

Yes, the laws were put in place because they were concerned about resurgent Nazism in the post-war world... of course, how necessary it is for some of these laws to still be in place is debatable.

While Neo-Nazism is alive and well in Germany, it's a different beast from the older version... probably not something worth this kind of restriction on speech.

Dom:

1) I read through the website for Age Of Man, if you can pull it off it will be an amazing mod, we are both going some similar directions and I like your concepts.
Please check out the CCCP as it gives some of the things you need.

2) Having worked in the game industry I know there are some serious import restrictions... Blood and Gore being one of them, as well as Nazi Symbolism.

Just look at what BattleFront, Paradox, Matrix games does on there forums they nuke any post with updated Nazi Graphics... while im in the US and have the right to say Bush is a chimp and Clinton is a man whore some folks dont have that ability. I agree that these lays are archiac... But in Davie Florida you still have to fire your gun while crossing the street on your horse, is it enforced..no... but its there and if the cops wanted to **** with you they could. Strangly enough I was arrested last year for some traffic stuff and when I left jail I asked for my Horse, Chicken and Six Shooter (as its the law that anyone released from jail in Texas gets those three things) they almost re-arrested me for saying it.

Is there a German out there that can chime in

I think everywhere in European Union swastikas are banned - there have been made some directives last (or two years ago) year banning this symbol and other things propagating nazism.

So very rarely you can see swastikas in games - it's somehow weird and it depends on historical accuracy and country where the game will be distributed. I think happy tank riding with swastikas here and there could be (without historic accuracy) propagation of nazism.

We can't forget about atrocities by Nazis (Holocaust (with all that nazis concentration camps - the factories for killing innocent people), atrocities to people in occupied countries) and Soviets (Katyn, mass death in Lagers), solding countries by west allies to Stalin in Jalta and Postdam wich means lost of independence by many countries (Latvia Lithuania, Estonia), becoming satelite countries (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgary, Romania, East Germany, Albania) lost of teritories (Finland, Poland, Romania, Germany, Japan). Great exodus of people (Polish from east territory of Poland and German from Prussia, West Pomerania and Silesia). First (and hopefully last) use of atom bombs

Remebering about all the aspects of war and giving historical accuracy to the game (and civilization IV has ability to be not only "happy riding with tank" game through changes in gameplay (all that religions, units, builduings, cywilopedia, and some tweaks with python and sdk) will cause that all that swastikas will defend - it's hard to call the game propagating fascism or communism then.

Personally swastikas and hammers and sickles aren't offense for me. I know history enough to know what could make cult of person and "men with brown shirts", and those symbol aren't propagation for me. It was people who murdered other people, not symbols itself. But good idea is to make patch like Paasky made replacing swastikas with symbols from comedy with chaplin :D

I think everywhere in European Union swastikas are banned - there have been made some directives last (or two years ago) year banning this symbol and other things propagating nazism.

Sort of impossible, as our Presidential Flag has on in it. But then again, that's the symbol of the Mannerheim's Knighthood of Freedom, dating to 1918, during our civil war. Also, the Finnish airforce had a blue swastika as their symbol, and that was given to them by a Swedish count again in 1918 for the "Whites" in their battle against the "Reds". For some reason the USSR was keen to have it removed :mischief:
http://flags.net/images/largeflags/FINL1001.GIF
http://www.warbirdforum.com/buffbellyin.jpg

Only for the last 60 years has the swastika been evil, as this article shows: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika It's been in use for a few thousand years already, and is still a strong religious symbol in Asia.

Yeah i agree about the history of swastika - i was very surprised when i saw swastika on the roman pretorian shield in one of the books. I heard also that swastika was also used by polish slavic tribes.

I've searched for this UE directive and found this article
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E0D7173DF936A15751C0A9639C8B 63&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations %2fE%2fEuropean%20Union%20
so it's seems that this project of directive have been dropped cause banning using them is against freedom of speech.
But it doesn't change that in Germany this sign is banned and in many european countries propagating nazism is crime. But making game (with historical accuracy and common sense) with that symbols isn't propagating of nazism imo.

I think the fact that nobody really seems to be sure suggests that the German police have better things to do with their time than bust down the doors of people with potentially illegal content in a video game... because that's something the Nazis would do.

I really could care less about symbols and names. I really just want a good ww2 scenario to be the backdrop for an evening of fun against my friends. The whole point of playing games is to experience another dimension. It can be exciting to think of how you would have done things had you been Hitler/Washington/Alexander/ 'insert famous leader's name here' .

Just make the mod already. I am DYING for a SOLID ww2 scenario.
Look at my alias. Guderian is the general i try to emulate in civilization no matter what civ I have, BUT I really want a good ww2 scenario to pound on my buds.

Why is a good ww2 scenario taking so long? There were a bazillion of them for civ2. I wish I had the skillz to mod because I would shaddup and get busy. Anyone wanna teach me? LOL

Ok, Im ranting and this post doesnt really serve any purpose.

yeah it's take a lot of time cause making unit in civ2 took 10-15 min and now it takes 15 hours :D
so you should be patient and wait for ww2 mods / scenarios - there are few created on fanatics and some will be created soon

You are right Asio3. I am impatient =)

Actually, after I made that post I decided to at least look into working on my own mod.

So maybe I will make one, and quit whining about there not being any great ones out there.

And, I also would like someone who is native German answer the OP....

Spreading Nazi-Symbols is Illigal in Germany execpt for the art or the science, the research or the teachings, the reporting over procedures of the history or similar purposes. Mowies are art. So Nazi-Symbols in Mowies are legal. Games are no Art. So Nazi-Symbols in Games are illegal.

Even Nazi-Symbols in Anti-Nazi-Symbols are Illegal. Samething like this :

http://www.bluejax.net/wp-content/themes/northern-web-coders/images/button_durchgestrichenes-hakenkreuz.png

Only Sreading is Illegal. Not Possessing. Downloading a Mod with Nazi-Symbols is Legal.

If someone uploads a Mod with Nazi-Symbols to a Site or Forum this Site or Forum will be illegal in Germany. A Link to this Site or Forum on a German Site or Forum will be illegal in Germany.
If there is a Mod with Nazi-Symbols on Civfanatics, and a German Site links to Civfanatics, it is possible that the owner of that german Site get problems.


PS: Sorry for my bad english.

I think that the best bet then is to just produce two versions... one with Nazi symbols and one without. Let people pick and choose, and if a German civ site wants to promote your mod, they can promote the one without the Nazi symbols.

Does that means captain america's comics are illegal in germany? :P
'cause cap is always fighting big bad nazi people with a handfull of swastikas flags, medals and all that.

I'm shocked, anyway, that video games are not art...

in Belgium (next to Germany ...) it is forbidden to use the symbols in the way neo-nazis do it; that is to say in a political way or to express an idiology (? spelling ?); but it is okay to use it in historical way and stuff like games, movies, literature, ...

I've seen pictures of hitler (on historical documents and copies of "mein kampf" ) in Germany which had the eyes taped over ... so I think it still is kind of a big deal over there

Well, it is true that there are strict laws regarding swastikas in Germany, as well as with SS runes and some other nazi stuff. One might have good reason to oppose such laws, but in case of their abandonment you would see thousands of German neo-nazis marching through Brandenburg gate with swastika flags, an image which would heavily damage Germanys reputation in the world. This is the reason for the law, it does nothing to fight neo-nazism in the mind of those people.

But most computer games are overly cautious with this. Actually, its not forbidden to name nazi leaders, as obviously Paradox Games thinks -- in their game Hearts of Iron they even have a person called "Adolf Hiller" as the leader of the Third Reich. This is just nonsens. While I wouldn't play a German civ with Adolf Hitler as their leader, this is just a matter of good taste, not of law.

I am working on a project that includes WW1 and WW2 as well as The Cold War, and I understand its in very poor taste to include certain German symbolism (The swastika) and other such things...

Since we are an international community I wanted to know what is good and what is bad to include in such a thing. As I understand it there are even laws in Germany regarding video games and movies and WW2 symbolism....

I don't want to step on any toes. I also don't want to open up political debate.
I'm Jewish I don't take offense to the Swastika myself nor does the image of Hitler cause me to run and hide a good deal of time when playing WW2 games I play Germany. But I realize all to well the Atrocities of war not only that I do not wish to step on any culture's toes. Can someone give me a run down of whats ok and and whats not ok?
Good luck with your project!
As for your question regarding swastikas, all other MODs i know of (HOI2 stuff) simply put a warning directly beneath the download link:
This contains images like swastikas blablabla if you live in a country where it's illegal to posses such images, don't download it.
Problem solved, never heard some one complain.

Good luck with your project!
As for your question regarding swastikas, all other MODs i know of (HOI2 stuff) simply put a warning directly beneath the download link:
This contains images like swastikas blablabla if you live in a country where it's illegal to posses such images, don't download it.
Problem solved, never heard some one complain.

But this would effectivly exclude German users from playing, unless they are willing to break the law (which is very strict - the only exceptions are made for educational purposes or art.And computer games are mainly rated as entertainment - an area where these symbols are strictly forbidden).

My suggestion would be a second version.

My suggestion would be a second version.

Exactly... how hard is it to have a second version with different flags?


Although, I'm about to get into the nitty gritty... if you have two versions, one with swastikas and one without, would someone be able to download the regular version and then download a small no-swastikas patch that would overwrite those files? Or would just the act of downloading something containing swastikas be a crime?

But this would effectivly exclude German users from playing, unless they are willing to break the law (which is very strict - the only exceptions are made for educational purposes or art.And computer games are mainly rated as entertainment - an area where these symbols are strictly forbidden).

My suggestion would be a second version.
I don't know where exactly you live in Germany, but here we have no problems with NeoNazis, and the police therefore has better things to do. I've even see someone masked as Hitler two times on Carneval! :crazyeye:

I wandered over to Panzer General's German site.

They seem to use the Iron Cross as German military markings. This is not historically inaccurate,

Exactly... how hard is it to have a second version with different flags?

Although, I'm about to get into the nitty gritty... if you have two versions, one with swastikas and one without, would someone be able to download the regular version and then download a small no-swastikas patch that would overwrite those files? Or would just the act of downloading something containing swastikas be a crime?

The used terminus in the law is "Verwenden" (=to use).Of course this is mainly directed (but not especially restricted) to use in the public.Creating and uploading such a mod would be a much greater problem for a German user.But if you look closer, it is also illegal to "own" such symbols (unless the are clearly part of educational or sceintific material, art etc.) - theoretically, writing a swastika without a comment on a paper is illegal (a different question is, if this is enough to be accused).
You can get even in trouble if you use a broken or smashed swastika to show Anti-Nazism.The court in Stuttgart recently convicted someone who sold articles with crossed-out swastikas.
I'm not sure about a patch - if it deletes the files, it may be ok - but everything only moving them may be to little to be on the safe side.


I don't know where exactly you live in Germany, but here we have no problems with NeoNazis, and the police therefore has better things to do. I've even see someone masked as Hitler two times on Carneval!

Maybe, but there are areas where we have problems.Just look at the last elections in some federal states and what happens occasionally around soccer games.And the police not doing anything against a Hitler mask in carneval...thats because this is not illegal.It may be offensive, but there is no special law against it.As well, a Hitler leaderhead is not as problematic as a swastika or some Nazi greetings.It may become dangerous though, if the court comes to the conclusion that it is part of something "gloryfying the Third Rich or its main representants".

So it seems then that the absolute safest way to do this would be to use the Iron Cross in the standard edition and then make a patch that would insert the swastikas which could be downloaded in countries where its not illegal (or by those who feel like chancing it in one where it is)... so that way you will be able to keep Germans from committing a crime by just downloading the thing, and German websites will be able to promote the mod without potentially being accused of a crime. They just won't promote the patch with the swastikas.

I for one seriously doubt that a nation would be so paranoid that they'd crack down on us hard-core modders. If it's a game being sold in a store (Battlefield, HoI, etc) they usually have the WWI flag in there. And usually someone makes a mod with the correct flags.

Well, Paasky, I say it's better to be safe than sorry... I mean, it's not just a matter of whether or not the government would actually crack down on this but whether someone in Germany who would download this mod would think twice about it.

I think a patch with the correct flags would be a quick and easy way to avoid any possible confrontation on the issue as well as put everyone's mind at ease.