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<blockquote class="Quote"><div><strong class="bc-author">DB_Cooper</strong> said:</div><div><blockquote class="Quote"><div><strong class="bc-author">Rockadelic</strong> said:</div><div>I grew up in a primarily Jewish neighborhood and when I was about 12 I wore something that was called a "Surfers Cross". One of my friends father's scolded me and told me it was a symbol of the Nazi Army.....I never wore it again out of respect(and not wanting to be scolded) but it had no ill intent on my part, nor on the part of the 1,000's of other kids who wore them.<br />
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	Your father's friend is certainly entitled to be offended by anything he wants, but he is, in this case, quite wrong. The Iron Cross was the symbol of the German army until 1918, when it was retired at the end of World War I. The swastika was the primary symbol of the Nazi party and the German army under Hitler, with the Iron Cross remaining as an honorary medal, similar to the American army's Purple Heart or Medal of Honor. <br />
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	He is conflating symbols from different eras of German history, much like the kid in my high school who worked himself up into a righteous lather and called me a Nazi one day because I was wearing an army/navy store-purchased East German officer's shirt circa 1960. People are welcome to their opinions of course, but if you're going to go around scolding others, you should really make sure you know what the fuck you're talking about.</div></blockquote>
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	"The famous custom car designer Ed "Big Daddy" Roth sold various "surfer accessories" in the 1960s that were based on WW 2 German items, like his "surfer's helmet" that is a plastic copy of a German helmet and he also manufactured his own Surfer's Cross. By 1966 Roth claimed to have sold 51,800 crosses and "that Hitler did a hell of a public relations job for me.""<br />
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	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfer's_cross<br />
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	"Adolf Hitler restored the Iron Cross in 1939 as a German decoration (rather than Prussian as in earlier versions), continuing the tradition of issuing it in various grades. Legally it is based on the enactment (Reichsgesetzblatt I S. 1573[4]) of 1 September 1939 Verordnung ??ber die Erneuerung des Eisernen Kreuzes (Regulation for the Re-introduction of the Iron Cross). The Iron Cross of the Second World War was divided into three main series of decorations with an intermediate category, the Knight's Cross, instituted between the lowest, the Iron Cross, and the highest, the Grand Cross. The Knight's Cross replaced the Prussian Pour le M??rite or "Blue Max". Hitler did not care for the Pour le M??rite, as it was a Prussian order that could be awarded only to officers. The ribbon of the medal (2nd class and Knight's Cross) was different from the earlier Iron Crosses in that the color red was used in addition to the traditional black and white (black and white were the colours of Prussia, while black, white, and red were the colors of Germany). Hitler also created the War Merit Cross as a replacement for the non-combatant version of the Iron Cross. It also appeared on certain Nazi flags (mostly the Third Reich flags) in the upper left corner. The edges were curved, like most original iron crosses."<br />
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	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_cross#Second_World_War

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