Try a google search, and you should be able to locate some of the discussions on this topic - there's been a lot of talk about this matter, and some of those who know the business have come up with some quite informative answers.
With the rise of the Nazi party and the subsequent war in Europe, Hohner was enlisted to produce detonators for the German government. The company installed its first mechanical conveyor systems to facilitate this work, which was mostly done by women. Hohner had earlier made harmonicas imprinted with swastikas, though the Nazi party took issue with the practice, considering the symbol's use on Hohner's product a trivialization. The harmonica was dismissed by many Germans, due to its association with "degenerate" American jazz and blues music as well as its relatively primitive nature.
Re: Yes, it is the hakenkreuz on Double Ray accordion
I have trouble thinking that anything associated with Nazi is cool or can be lovely. Hohner is not all that innocent. The firm published many Nazi song-books:
“The pages with song lyrics have beautiful, delicate, colorful illustrations of Nazi soldiers singing, Nazi soldiers marching, soldier cooks trying to catch a pig, Wehrmacht soldiers romancing pretty girls, leaving on trains, etc. Songs include Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, Ich bin des Führers Frontsoldat, Die blauen Dragoner, Der treue Husar, Liebes Mädel, Soldatenliebchen, Wenn wir marschieren, Mein Regiment, Erika, Soll ich dir mein Liebchen nennen, etc.”
“They are songs virtually every German Wehrmacht Landser and Waffen-SS man knew and wanted to hear over and over again.”
Hohner published such books as:
“SONG BOOK OF THE WEHRMACHT
Liederbuch der Wehrmacht contains 138 of the most-sung soldier songs as selected by Hauptmann Plock in August 1935.”
The Hohner firm supported Nazism and Hitler. I don’t care who uses the swastika, which is not always the Nazi hakenkreuz. But in Hohner’s case, sadly, it is.
Indicting the present-day Hohner company for the follies of its past administrators is nothing short of placing an illegitimate interest of the present on a happenstance of the past. The current administrative staff at Hohner is so ignorant of its own past that it cannot even tell historians and musicologists the origins, designers, builders, or first production dates of its most popular accordion models. That much is left up to a small but dedicated group of amateur hobbyists who collect old mail order catalogs and magazine adverts. It was my understanding that since the 1990s the controlling interest in Hohner has been owned by Taiwanese investors.
During the Second World War there were many people pressed into service for their countries on both sides. It doesn't follow that all participants agreed 100% with what was asked of them, nor is it rational to assume that all of those people could have been able to remain prosperous while preserving their self interest at the same time without making certain concessions to their government.
My government in the United States has been torturing so-called terrorists for eight years and has brought very few up on legitimate charges. My government in the United States deliberately destabilized an entire geographical region by toppling an autonomous regime, without provocation. My government has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians to be murdered in the name of the "War on Terror."
Does living in America make me a militant, murderous disaster capitalist? All other things equal, the biggest difference is that I can safely disagree with my government's actions without serious worry that my livelihood will be threatened, at least not on the scale that it would have been for similar dissent during the war years.
Moreover, before 1939 and during Hitler's rise to power Hohner was exporting instruments to Allied nations, but I don't think anyone on this board would point a finger at the merchants accepting those shipments. Within reason, it is not fair to hold today's world responsible for a past it had little hand in creating, lest the past become too much for us to bear.
Guernsey Pete wrote that: "Don't forget that, with a right-hand-turn, it was a symbol of good luck in the indian tradition"
A common misconception. In Asian traditions the swastika is indeed a positive, auspicious symbol, but there it has *no* particular way round, and can easily be found one way round on one side of a picture, the other way round on the other side, just for the sake of aesthetically pleasing symmetry.
Gravelwalks, what is the "happenstance of the past" to which you refer? Nazism? The Holocaust? Everything I said is true except this: "But in Hohner’s case, sadly, it is." I should have said, "it was."
I agree with just about everything you said about the US. But please don't set me up as a straw man and don't put words in my mouth. I did not indict "...the present-day Hohner company for the follies of its past administrators..." Nothing anybody said could be so construed. That is your extension of the information I presented, to wit: the Hohner company was a supporter of the Nazi regime. Make of this what you will; the facts are incontrovertible.
Support of Nazism should not be trivialized, as you do, by calling it "follies."
This is a highly inflammatory topic which I will not pursue further.
Nazism was certainly nothing less than a folly! This is not a trivialization, this is a fact. We're both aware of this.
I was responding to what I perceived to be a negative value judgment of a modern company, based on decisions that company made under extenuating circumstances in the past.
By state mandate, essentially under duress, a certain portion of the German manufacturing infrastructure was relegated to wartime wartime production. Hohner was no exception. I have yet to see any convincing sources that tell of Hohner being an outspoken proponent of Nazism or genocide, although in the case of the songbook you mention, of which I was already aware, they did their part in promoting folk music which had essentially been pirated by the government and used as propaganda.
Comparatively few Germans were so radical or supportive Nazism, although now that's all 60+ years in the tank, it's clear as day to see the pitfalls of runaway nationalism. And for that reason it's not entirely fair for us in the present to criticize those in the past. Modern businesses in the West set their own production goals and don't have to worry about being arrested or shutdown for disagreeing with Congress or Parliament.
Some big German firms have paid historians to look into their own firm's past between 1933 and 45. Hohner is certainly big enough to be able to do that. Why don't you e-mail them and question them about the swastikas on their instruments? Has anybody got a photo?
I think we all agree that crimes, political or otherwise, should never be trivialized or 'swept under the carpet'. There is still a strong tendency in Germany to do so, not only concerning the Nazis.
OK, found the photos down the melodeon thread. To answer the initial question - there is no way Hohner could have put a swastica on their instruments after May 8, 1945. It's illegal in this country.
Thanks everyone for all the replies. I am only interested in dates, not the politics of the matter. So thanks, "kuec" for your answer but I think you may be wrong. I have a Double Ray that I'm almost sure can't have been made before the late fifties and it does have swastikas. However, it was made in Switzerland. As regards the politics, consider this: there was a laundry in Dublin called the "Swastika Laundry", even had a big swastika on their vans. They were still there in the seventies and may be still there for all I know. My understanding is that they predated Hitler and his pals and had nothing whatever to do with National Socialism. Perhaps the same holds for Hohner? Probably not, too many haiches in the name.
bn
I can think of the following solutions:
a) the instruments were manufactured abroad
b) it was argued that the sign was only a cross of musical notes for decoration.
c) it was only made for export
d) a combination of the above
There is an Irish Diary by a famous German author, Heinrich Boell. He spent some time on Achill Island (or is it islands?) in the 1950s. He was taken aback when some old guy told him that Hitler was alright because he had fought the Brits.
Well I'll go the foot of our stairs...You learn something new every day. I've been familiar with and owned Hohner accordions since the 1940s, and not once did I or any of my age group ever associate that Symbol with the Swastika. Incidentally the accordions featured in my accordion catalogues from the mid seventies still show that Symbol on the Double Ray Accordions?.
I feel dumb for bothering to respond to the best-known narrow mind on this board, but in reply to:
"I think you'd have to have taken an anaesthetic to see a swastica as aesthetic"
Human history is bigger than that of Europe in the last 80 years.
You sound dumb too. Either that or you actually are under an anaesthetic.
There's 2,000 year old swastika in the National Museum of Scotland, A little piece of carved stone, part of a set of miniature idols left behind by a Roman soldier. It's a very weird feeling looking at it. It is impossible to see it for what it actually is. Impossible. And If you think I'm narrow minded, you've never understood a single word I've said.
This discussion reminds me of that classic joke:
Man walks into a shop and asks, "Do you sell crucifixes?"
The assistant replies, "Would you like a plain one, or one with a little man on?"
I certainly don't understand your last post.
It would be nice to think I misunderstood you all these years - you so often looked like a narrow-minded, tiresome little martinet. Being wrong would be so much more pleasing!
Wake up and look over the edge of your saucer.
I think I will finally get round to following my better jugement and stop bothering. Goodbye.
Someone used to come along to Sheffield Accordion Club with a PA (I guess it was a Hohner), which he reckoned was an ex-Hitler-Youth box.
Where the bass buttons are normally at an angle of some 30 degrees down, this one had both corners filled in with extra buttons, so the buttons were in a rectangle.
Never seen another box like it !
"Things like that"?
Perhaps it's just given him a wider perspective. Swastikas have been used all over Asia for thousands of years as a symbol of good things. There's even a religion that has the swastika as its main symbol, but you wouldn't want to know about "things like that", would you?
You can't put on blinkers about the whole history of human culture, however horrible the Nazi era was.
Do you really think that subscribing to a belief system gives you a wide perspective?
My point is that for the vast majority of people (excepting a tiny percentage living for generations in places as remote as the Brazilion rain forest), the sawastica has become a symbol of nazi attrocities.
I look at the 2,000 year old Roman icon in the museum and can find it fascinating for what it is. But I can't really see it for what it is. The associated symbolism is impossible to escape. It's all very well taking taking the detached historical perspective, but anyone who denies their emotional reaction to it is either stupid or under an anaesthetic.
However, just to clear things up. I appologise for my first post on this thread, It should have read:
"Since the 1940s, I think you'd have to have taken an anaesthetic to see a swastica as aesthetic"
I wasn't meaning to imply that it couldn't be done before that.
swastikas on Double Ray accordion
swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Does anyone know when Hohner stopped putting swastikas on their Double Ray??
bn
# Posted on March 16th 2009 by Burnt Nial
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Try a google search, and you should be able to locate some of the discussions on this topic - there's been a lot of talk about this matter, and some of those who know the business have come up with some quite informative answers.
# Posted on March 16th 2009 by Larshansen
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
There's an inconclusive discussion about this in the following thread which has an image of a box with the symbol. It looks like it's comprised of musical notes.
http://melodeon.aimoo.com/category/Swastikas-on-Hohner-Double-Ray-1-424568.html
# Posted on March 16th 2009 by ∅
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Don't forget that, with a right-hand-turn, it was a symbol of good luck in the indian tradition.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
You could probably get a customised one if you ask them nicely and pay the odds. If this starts a rush, they might be cheaper.
Might be quicker to get some WW2 model kit and use the transfers, though!
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by nicholas
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
With the rise of the Nazi party and the subsequent war in Europe, Hohner was enlisted to produce detonators for the German government. The company installed its first mechanical conveyor systems to facilitate this work, which was mostly done by women. Hohner had earlier made harmonicas imprinted with swastikas, though the Nazi party took issue with the practice, considering the symbol's use on Hohner's product a trivialization. The harmonica was dismissed by many Germans, due to its association with "degenerate" American jazz and blues music as well as its relatively primitive nature.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Yes, it is the hakenkreuz on Double Ray accordion
I have trouble thinking that anything associated with Nazi is cool or can be lovely. Hohner is not all that innocent. The firm published many Nazi song-books:
“The pages with song lyrics have beautiful, delicate, colorful illustrations of Nazi soldiers singing, Nazi soldiers marching, soldier cooks trying to catch a pig, Wehrmacht soldiers romancing pretty girls, leaving on trains, etc. Songs include Ich hatt' einen Kameraden, Ich bin des Führers Frontsoldat, Die blauen Dragoner, Der treue Husar, Liebes Mädel, Soldatenliebchen, Wenn wir marschieren, Mein Regiment, Erika, Soll ich dir mein Liebchen nennen, etc.”
“They are songs virtually every German Wehrmacht Landser and Waffen-SS man knew and wanted to hear over and over again.”
Hohner published such books as:
“SONG BOOK OF THE WEHRMACHT
Liederbuch der Wehrmacht contains 138 of the most-sung soldier songs as selected by Hauptmann Plock in August 1935.”
Ref: http://www.usmbooks.com/soldaten_liederbuch.html
The Hohner firm supported Nazism and Hitler. I don’t care who uses the swastika, which is not always the Nazi hakenkreuz. But in Hohner’s case, sadly, it is.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by David Levine
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Indicting the present-day Hohner company for the follies of its past administrators is nothing short of placing an illegitimate interest of the present on a happenstance of the past. The current administrative staff at Hohner is so ignorant of its own past that it cannot even tell historians and musicologists the origins, designers, builders, or first production dates of its most popular accordion models. That much is left up to a small but dedicated group of amateur hobbyists who collect old mail order catalogs and magazine adverts. It was my understanding that since the 1990s the controlling interest in Hohner has been owned by Taiwanese investors.
During the Second World War there were many people pressed into service for their countries on both sides. It doesn't follow that all participants agreed 100% with what was asked of them, nor is it rational to assume that all of those people could have been able to remain prosperous while preserving their self interest at the same time without making certain concessions to their government.
My government in the United States has been torturing so-called terrorists for eight years and has brought very few up on legitimate charges. My government in the United States deliberately destabilized an entire geographical region by toppling an autonomous regime, without provocation. My government has allowed hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians to be murdered in the name of the "War on Terror."
Does living in America make me a militant, murderous disaster capitalist? All other things equal, the biggest difference is that I can safely disagree with my government's actions without serious worry that my livelihood will be threatened, at least not on the scale that it would have been for similar dissent during the war years.
Moreover, before 1939 and during Hitler's rise to power Hohner was exporting instruments to Allied nations, but I don't think anyone on this board would point a finger at the merchants accepting those shipments. Within reason, it is not fair to hold today's world responsible for a past it had little hand in creating, lest the past become too much for us to bear.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by gravelwalks
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Guernsey Pete wrote that: "Don't forget that, with a right-hand-turn, it was a symbol of good luck in the indian tradition"
A common misconception. In Asian traditions the swastika is indeed a positive, auspicious symbol, but there it has *no* particular way round, and can easily be found one way round on one side of a picture, the other way round on the other side, just for the sake of aesthetically pleasing symmetry.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Alex Wilding
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
I think you'd have to have taken an anaesthetic to see a swastica as aesthetic
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by ...
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Gravelwalks, what is the "happenstance of the past" to which you refer? Nazism? The Holocaust? Everything I said is true except this: "But in Hohner’s case, sadly, it is." I should have said, "it was."
I agree with just about everything you said about the US. But please don't set me up as a straw man and don't put words in my mouth. I did not indict "...the present-day Hohner company for the follies of its past administrators..." Nothing anybody said could be so construed. That is your extension of the information I presented, to wit: the Hohner company was a supporter of the Nazi regime. Make of this what you will; the facts are incontrovertible.
Support of Nazism should not be trivialized, as you do, by calling it "follies."
This is a highly inflammatory topic which I will not pursue further.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by David Levine
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Nazism was certainly nothing less than a folly! This is not a trivialization, this is a fact. We're both aware of this.
I was responding to what I perceived to be a negative value judgment of a modern company, based on decisions that company made under extenuating circumstances in the past.
By state mandate, essentially under duress, a certain portion of the German manufacturing infrastructure was relegated to wartime wartime production. Hohner was no exception. I have yet to see any convincing sources that tell of Hohner being an outspoken proponent of Nazism or genocide, although in the case of the songbook you mention, of which I was already aware, they did their part in promoting folk music which had essentially been pirated by the government and used as propaganda.
Comparatively few Germans were so radical or supportive Nazism, although now that's all 60+ years in the tank, it's clear as day to see the pitfalls of runaway nationalism. And for that reason it's not entirely fair for us in the present to criticize those in the past. Modern businesses in the West set their own production goals and don't have to worry about being arrested or shutdown for disagreeing with Congress or Parliament.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by gravelwalks
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Some big German firms have paid historians to look into their own firm's past between 1933 and 45. Hohner is certainly big enough to be able to do that. Why don't you e-mail them and question them about the swastikas on their instruments? Has anybody got a photo?
I think we all agree that crimes, political or otherwise, should never be trivialized or 'swept under the carpet'. There is still a strong tendency in Germany to do so, not only concerning the Nazis.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by kuec
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
OK, found the photos down the melodeon thread. To answer the initial question - there is no way Hohner could have put a swastica on their instruments after May 8, 1945. It's illegal in this country.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by kuec
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Thanks everyone for all the replies. I am only interested in dates, not the politics of the matter. So thanks, "kuec" for your answer but I think you may be wrong. I have a Double Ray that I'm almost sure can't have been made before the late fifties and it does have swastikas. However, it was made in Switzerland. As regards the politics, consider this: there was a laundry in Dublin called the "Swastika Laundry", even had a big swastika on their vans. They were still there in the seventies and may be still there for all I know. My understanding is that they predated Hitler and his pals and had nothing whatever to do with National Socialism. Perhaps the same holds for Hohner? Probably not, too many haiches in the name.
bn
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Burnt Nial
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
I can think of the following solutions:
a) the instruments were manufactured abroad
b) it was argued that the sign was only a cross of musical notes for decoration.
c) it was only made for export
d) a combination of the above
There is an Irish Diary by a famous German author, Heinrich Boell. He spent some time on Achill Island (or is it islands?) in the 1950s. He was taken aback when some old guy told him that Hitler was alright because he had fought the Brits.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by kuec
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Well I'll go the foot of our stairs...You learn something new every day. I've been familiar with and owned Hohner accordions since the 1940s, and not once did I or any of my age group ever associate that Symbol with the Swastika. Incidentally the accordions featured in my accordion catalogues from the mid seventies still show that Symbol on the Double Ray Accordions?.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
That should read 'to the foot of our stairs' Oh for an edit facility
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
I feel dumb for bothering to respond to the best-known narrow mind on this board, but in reply to:
"I think you'd have to have taken an anaesthetic to see a swastica as aesthetic"
Human history is bigger than that of Europe in the last 80 years.
# Posted on March 17th 2009 by Alex Wilding
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
You sound dumb too. Either that or you actually are under an anaesthetic.
There's 2,000 year old swastika in the National Museum of Scotland, A little piece of carved stone, part of a set of miniature idols left behind by a Roman soldier. It's a very weird feeling looking at it. It is impossible to see it for what it actually is. Impossible. And If you think I'm narrow minded, you've never understood a single word I've said.
This discussion reminds me of that classic joke:
Man walks into a shop and asks, "Do you sell crucifixes?"
The assistant replies, "Would you like a plain one, or one with a little man on?"
# Posted on March 18th 2009 by ...
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
I certainly don't understand your last post.
It would be nice to think I misunderstood you all these years - you so often looked like a narrow-minded, tiresome little martinet. Being wrong would be so much more pleasing!
Wake up and look over the edge of your saucer.
I think I will finally get round to following my better jugement and stop bothering. Goodbye.
# Posted on March 18th 2009 by Alex Wilding
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
I get it now, your anaesthetic is Buddhism. Things like that stop a lot of people from bothering.
# Posted on March 18th 2009 by ...
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Someone used to come along to Sheffield Accordion Club with a PA (I guess it was a Hohner), which he reckoned was an ex-Hitler-Youth box.
Where the bass buttons are normally at an angle of some 30 degrees down, this one had both corners filled in with extra buttons, so the buttons were in a rectangle.
Never seen another box like it !
# Posted on March 18th 2009 by geoffwright
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
"Things like that"?
Perhaps it's just given him a wider perspective. Swastikas have been used all over Asia for thousands of years as a symbol of good things. There's even a religion that has the swastika as its main symbol, but you wouldn't want to know about "things like that", would you?
You can't put on blinkers about the whole history of human culture, however horrible the Nazi era was.
# Posted on March 19th 2009 by BanJacki
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Do you really think that subscribing to a belief system gives you a wide perspective?
My point is that for the vast majority of people (excepting a tiny percentage living for generations in places as remote as the Brazilion rain forest), the sawastica has become a symbol of nazi attrocities.
I look at the 2,000 year old Roman icon in the museum and can find it fascinating for what it is. But I can't really see it for what it is. The associated symbolism is impossible to escape. It's all very well taking taking the detached historical perspective, but anyone who denies their emotional reaction to it is either stupid or under an anaesthetic.
However, just to clear things up. I appologise for my first post on this thread, It should have read:
"Since the 1940s, I think you'd have to have taken an anaesthetic to see a swastica as aesthetic"
I wasn't meaning to imply that it couldn't be done before that.
# Posted on March 19th 2009 by ...
Re: swastikas on Double Ray accordion
Cocus--truly interesting, thanks for some substantial info.
But, I must ask--how did you manage to change the title of the topic
# Posted on March 22nd 2009 by hauke