The Swastika Laundry on Shelbourne Road in Ballsbridge (Dublin), Ireland was founded in 1912, and was not about to give up its name or symbol because some wackos in Germany decided to also adopt that ancient symbol as their own. Good for them. And Swastika Laundry stuck it out all the way through the 1980s, with their fleet of vintage battery-electric delivery vans.
I don’t need to tell you that the swastika (in its many variations) was used by ancient cultures all over the globe, including the Jews. But thanks to the Nazis it got a bad rep, and its use was drastically curtailed. But not by these folks. Love those electric vans, a variation on the famous British milk floats.
histomoil.com via robert.walter
Wow. That company must have had a hard time of it during and after WWII. I understand the “We had it first” argument, but it can’t have been good for business. I can only imagine the advertising. “Our low prices have caused a Fuhrer.”
Well, Ireland was neutral during WWII, at least officially, so perhaps the company didn’t get as much criticism as we might think. Here in the U.S. we see a swastika and immediately think of Nazi Germany. Other cultures might well view the same symbol differently and people there might not have the same negative reaction.
It’s the reich choice!
@ jpc
🙂 🙂 🙂 !
They’ve been used by Native Americans for a while too, I took this picture the other day of some on the gates of a ranch in rural Oklahoma, they’re still shocking even when you know about their other history.
These, like most Native American uses of the swastika, have the “arms” in the opposite direction as the one used by the Nazi party.
that’s just what they told the press…in reality, that’s where all the escaped nazis ended up, running a laundry in Ireland and plotting the Fourth Reich.
The swastika is also a major Buddhist symbol that is still used today, although it appears to have become less visible since WWII.
A friend in NY found while apartment-hunting that one of the apartments that he was interested in had once been owned by an American who had lived in China for many years, and that in the 1920s he had installed various Buddhist swastika fixtures and a parquet floor with swastika patterns. Being Jewish with a somewhat eccentric sense of humor (think Mel Brooks), he thought that it was hilarious and wanted to buy the place. His wife disagreed completely.
There is an 1920s building on Beach St. near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz CA that has Swastikas in the facade. I noticed it about 10 yrs ago.
St. Mary’s Byzantine Catholic church in Johnstown, PA (where my family went) had swastika tiles in the floor around the altar. I never realized this until one day, in my late twenties, when I had a reason to walk up around the altar due to having brought the Red Cross into the neighborhood the day after the ’77 Johnstown Flood.
Many church organists are familiar with hymns sung to the tune called “Austria.” This tune happens to be associated with the German national anthem, both before and after World War II. Its use during the Nazi regime posed problems for Allied countries that had been using this tune, with different words, in their hymnals. So, in England, Cyril Vincent Taylor wrote another tune as a substitute for “Austria” which quickly came into common usage. I can say that in my own experience the question of which tune to use always comes up, because of the shadow of World War II. It’s as though some things have been forever polluted in some way by their association with Nazi Germany.
I’m impressed that a business managed to keep using its trademark despite the Nazis!
The university that I attended had a school fight song using the exact same tune as the German national anthem. They changed it in 1917, when the US entered WWI. The school marching band would occasionally use it for humor value in the 90s when I went there.
I am not surprised at this. Ireland was neutral in WWII did not suffer from Germany like other European countries. In fact if you traveled back to 1940’s Ireland, you would find out that they had no bothers or worries about the Nazi’s or Germany at all. So the Swastika would not have caused an uproar in Ireland at all.
In fact it was the British that most folks in Ireland disliked or thought an enemy at that time. The years of British rule, the Easter Uprising of 1916 and the Irish Civil War were still fresh at the dawn of the war and remembered by many and while the 1937 Constitution set Ireland on the path to being a republic, they would not be officially a republic until 1949.
That site was next door to where the first Volkswagen cars, not built in Germany, were built. There is a large Mercedes / VW dealer there now.
They had a chimney with the symbol on it too.
These things all looked much the same, but the featured vehicle seems to be a Morrison Electricar. Very few survive. Not sure about the box van though.
Take back the swastika! Screw hitler and the nazis! *lowercase on purpose* despite of this auto correct. The swastika is a beautiful shape, as mentioned before, used by Buddists, Hindus, and even Native Americans. Hat off to this company!
In Northeastern Ontario, Canada, there is a small community named Swastika, Ontario. Several hundred kilometers or so way, there’s another community named Poland, Ontario.
During Word War I, the City of Berlin, Ontario was renamed ‘Kitchener’ in 1916.
This post also shows how long lived Electric Vehicles can be in a urban P&D duty cycle. At the Hayes Truck Museum in Woodland they had a 1920s Electric Truck that saw revenue service into the mid 1950s.
I wonder if some of the stuff that FedEx, UPS and Frito-Lay is using down will last as long.
The Swastika was a very valued symbol in Native American and loads of eastern cultures. In the USA and Canada it was considered a good luck symbol up until the 1920’s and lots of old buildings have them in them and they predate the Nazis.
Of course with the after WWII climate the Swastika is suspect and nobody is putting them in buildings now, however occasionally the US Government will unwittingly design a building such as a NAVY building as a Giant Swastika
If I recall correctly the Irish Free State even allowed some Nazi ships to dock in their ports. The top photo is not black and white, but it sure looks like it. Wonder why Swastika Laundry went out of business?
They were swallowed-up by a bigger fish.
Gets your whites the whitest.