Even after almost 80 years after the annihilation of the Third Reich, the public display of a swastika in much of the world is met with brutal criticism, and even outright violence by those who object to the “Hakenkreuz” (hooked cross), and what it stood for. But in truth, the swastika existed many millennia before Hitler and the NSDAP; even long before Germany itself was a country within the European continent.
The oldest swastika-like form found to date was carved on a piece of ivory about 12,000 years ago in the Mezine area of Ukraine. Additional examples dating back