"CWO4 Dave Mann" wrote:

Peter Hucker wrote:

You can't send/receive a swastika in Germany? That's a little childish.

I seem to recall that it is due to a law which first regulated Nazi-era
souvenirs. But, there was concern by the Germans about the burgeoning
neo-Nazi groups which flourished in the old East Germany after the
Reunification.

The banning of Nazi symbols started with the occupation of
Germany. It was fairly comprehensive, at least in the US
zone, sometimes to the point of seeming inane. Some works
of classical music were banned from public performances on
the grounds that they had been used by the Nazi regime
(Liszt's "Les Preludes" was one such work; among other
things, an excerpt from it was used to open radio news reports
on the war in Russia).

As the occupation settled into the Cold War, the government
of Bizonia/Trizonia/FRG maintained the ban on Nazi symbols.
There are multiple reasons for this, in no particular order of
their importance:

1: Don't **** off the Soviets; they're still in a bad mood.

2: It's a sop to the Western powers; a lot of former Nazis were
only technically denazified, and banning Nazi symbols made
it look like something was being done to keep them in check.

3: The FRG leadership had a realistic attitude toward the Nazis,
who had a habit of jailing, torturing and executing their opponents.
Why take a chance that the Green Devils, "Deutsche Revolution,"
Gotenbund or other splinter parties might turn into the next NDSAP?

4: If you can't talk about the Reich, then you can't talk about
its atrocities, which saves some people a lot of embarrassment.

The ban stayed in place long after the "economic miracle" and the
FRG's entry into NATO removed the two major issues that might
have fuelled a Nazi revival. My guess is that motive #4 would
have to receive considerable weight in any discussion of why
the ban remains in place.

--Bill Thompson