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Here's a dilemma for you, or maybe it isn't. I'm currently making this freeware aircraft for FSX, which I'm sure you will recognise as LZ-129, aka the Hindenburg: The problem is, rather obviously since it was about fifty feet wide on the real thing, the massive Swastika flag on the tailfins. Personally, not being a fan of revisionist versions of history, I'm of the opinion that if it was there on the real thing, then it ought to be there on a model which is supposedly representing the real thing. However... Whilst I'm certainly no ######, I see such a model as nothing more than a representation of what the real thing looked like, and thus its realistic appearance is acceptable to me, but I realise some people might differ in that view. My interest in modeling the Hindenburg is because it was and still is, the largest aircraft ever made and flown, and a fascinating thing for sure. But the fact remains that the real thing was something of a political football, it being partially funded by the ###### government - to the tune of 11 million marks. Whether we like it or not, the big Zeppelin was a showcase for the ##### on occasion, even flying over the Olympic Stadium at the opening ceremony of the Berlin Summer Games in 1936. But that did often backfire, notably when the legendary US athlete James Cleveland 'Jesse' Owens, thrashed everyone at the 1936 Berlin Olympics - winning the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay Gold medals. Owen's stunning athleticism, and the fact that he was a negro, infuriated Adolf enough to make him storm out of the games like a petulant child, and fortunately it has upstaged the appearance of the Hindenburg over the stadium as far as the history books are concerned, where the ##### wanted the games to be a display of Aryan supremacy, and although the Germans did win more medals than any other country at the 1936 Olympics, everyone instead remembers Owens and not those other wins, nor the appearance of the Hindenburg overhead. On the other side of the coin, there is Hugo Eckener. Eckener was one of the chief men at the Zeppelin company and the driving force of many Zeppelin projects including the Hindenburg and the Graf Zeppelin (which he also captained on many occasions), and he was greatly admired the world over, appearing on the cover of Time Magazine and being given a ticker-tape parade in New York City amongst other accolades. Eckener was staunchly against the ##### and often outspoken about them too, in spite of the difficulties that stance put him in, especially when the ##### wanted to use the Hindenburg to promote themselves politically, even though doing so was undoubtedly a case of the Zeppelin company paying the piper, because of the way it had been funded. But it was Eckener who named the ship Hindenburg - without seeking approval from the ##### - and in doing so apparently infuriating both Joseph Goebbels and Adolf a really bad dude (there's a case in point, look what the forum replaces the guy's surname with), who had wanted to name the ship after the Fuhrer. Eckener also described the Hindenburg flights the ##### used to promote themselves as 'scheissfahrts' (sh*t flights). This lesser known aspect of the Hindenburg's history shows that the ##### didn't get their own way all the time where the Hindenburg was concerned when Eckener was around (or Jesse Owens for that matter), so in as much as it was a symbol of the #####, in having the Swastika on the tail, to me, it also recalls the men who were prepared to make a stand against them long before WW2 commenced. Few people can fail to have been moved by Herbert Morrison's emotionally-charged WSL Radio commentary at the fiery demise of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst NJ in 1937, when approximately one third of the people on board were killed as it burst into flames whilst landing. And perhaps no less emotional, are the arguments for not displaying the Swastika on the tail of a model of it. But what do you think? Do I model it with a Swastika, without a Swastika, or do I sit on the fence and make two versions, so people could choose for themselves? Should Avsim's file library even host something with a Swastika on it? It does so at the moment, and I'm not offended by that, since I view it with merely an historical eye. But I'd be interested to hear opinions on the matter. Al
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