page_title: Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century
section_title: Sweden
hierarchical_section_title: Western use of the swastika in the early 20th century / Europe / Sweden
caption_attribution_description: The logo of ASEA prior to 1933.
context_page_description: The swastika is an ancient Indo-European religious symbol with the earliest known example found in Mezine, modern Ukraine, that generally takes the form of an equilateral cross with four legs each bent at 90 degrees in either right-facing form or its mirrored left-facing form. It is considered to be a sacred and auspicious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism and dates back at least 11,000 years.
  The swastika symbol became a popular symbol of luck in the Western world in the early 20th century, as it had long been in Asia, and was often used for ornamentation. The Nazi Party adopted the symbol in the 1920s, and its use in Western countries faded after the Nazi association became dominant in the 1930s. In recent decades many public swastikas have been removed or covered over, although others have been deliberately retained as part of debate about historical preservation.
context_section_description: The 1872 painting Thor's Fight with the Giants by the Swedish artist Mårten Eskil Winge features a swastika clearly visible in Thor's belt. The Swedish company ASEA, now a part of Asea Brown Boveri, used the swastika in its logo from the 1890s to 1933, when it was removed from the logo.
caption: ASEA logo used from the late nineteenth century until 1933
exif: {}