Originally posted by frank3
a balken kreuz, that's very much posible, but it's some sort of swastika, the German army changed the swastika for the balkenkreuz after the 1st ww, but it was still used at some planes during WW2
Germany used a Maltese cross (adapted from the coat of arms of the Hohenzollern family) as the national insignia for its aircraft until March 20, 1918, at which time the national insignia became the balkenkreuz, a black Greek (equal-armed) cross with the arms outlined in white; this change was completed by April 14, 1918. The balkenkreuz was the German national insignia; the hakenkreuz, or swastika, was the symbol of the Nazi party. During the early days of WWII, however, ground vehicles were marked with an all-white balkenkreuz until the Wehrmacht realized that the Polish antitank gunners were using the white crosses as aiming points. The white crosses were overpainted in yellow. By the time of the invasion of France, the national insignia for vehicles had been standardized to the white outlines from the black-and-white balkenkreuz (no black center). Later in the war, the insignia for ground vehicles was changed to the full black-and-white balkenkreuz, and the insignia for aircraft was simplified to just the white outline -- reversing the association that had been in use during the early war.
