I want to point out one single thing -

A classic manipulation method is - Reverse Psychology -

The subject has no idea that the prohibition for example of - X - has one and only reason.

To create a critical mass of followers revolting to the prohibition it's self, hence reinforcing

the idea under persecution.


A classic example are the Christians.

Imagine the fate of Christianity if the Romans did not forcefully prohibit the idea.

It would have faded away like any other cult or what have you.


Get it? :P

I had the impression that the nazi swastika was illegal in the USSR (as was), as well as in Germany, was I wrong about that or has it changed since?

It never was illegal in the USSR, or later in any ex-USSR country by itself. At least to the point it is in Germany.

The propaganda of Nazism was and is illegal in the USSR/Russia and most ex-USSR countries. But placing swastikas in fiction book illustrations, scale models, non-documentary movies and games is not considered as such propaganda, if it is put in a historically correct context (i.e. nazi symbol = bad).

BTW, Russian version of the IL-2 had swastika enabled from the very beginning.

PS Few weeks ago I visited an exhibition of knives, that was held here in Kiev. Among other interesting things (including kitchen knives $200 each and some hunting knives for $6000 each), they had a collection of Nazi cold weapons - knives, bayonets, swords, etc. Virtually each subject in the collection had various Nazi symbols on it.
And below the stand they had a small placard reading "This collection has nothing to do with Nazi propaganda!" :)
Should they not have this placard, they could have been prosecuted for the display.

I thought the Russian version of il2 came with swastika's enabled?

And blood / gore enabled

It seemed to me that the swastik symbol in IL-2 was a bit small compared to old pictures and newsreels of the time period. I used an enabler found at the hyper lobby web site.