Bluemofia said:
Didn't Hitler take the Swastika and fliped it and rotated it 45 degrees?
You can see old (pre-Nazi) swastika symbols here and there. Hitler wasn't that original, as the symbol was flipped and rotated already before his times.
Swastika's nature as a symbol is to present eternity and everlasting movement, without start or end.
Swastika was a symbol many things, such as sun, sun's movement, rotation of earth, life and transmigration of soul, different phases of life and death. Basicly anything which goes on without clear start and end. The day or sun's movement was seen starting from the east (left) to the west (right) - this is why the first swastikas are usually "mirror images" to the Nazi swastika. Swastika was already "flipped" centuries ago, when it portrayed the way how world rotation was seen, from left to right. In the East life often wasn't limited to birth and death like the Western people usually tend to experience it.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century you can see a boom in using swastika as a decorative form in the Western decorative art, especially in art nouveau or art deco. In those times mythologies, occultism and spiritualism, sort of first form of New Age was experienced in the West. This pop culture kind of formed base for the Nazi mythology.
Hitler decided to use Swastika as the symbol of Nazi movement because he and other leading early Nazis like Ernst Hanfstaengl thought the movement needed similar eye-catching symbol to communism with its red flag and yellow hammer, sickle and star. Hitler designed the symbol very carefully. First people to see it described their feelings later, how amazed and captivated they felt and that they knew the Nazi movement will prevail in German politics. For many early followers, seeing the flag was a moment of decision and silent oath to follow it. Then why he used the swastika? There are no simple answers as there was no clear Nazi mythology back then. One solution could be that in Linz, Austria where he spent his boyhood, was a church which had a big decorative swastika.
In those years swastika was already used in many different ways. For example Finnish airforce used it because it received it's first aeroplane from a Swedish count who used swastika as his symbol of luck. This in 1917, when corporal Hitler was sitting in the trenches somewhere near Ypres without an idea how the future will be like.
Hope this sheds some light...
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