Navy to 'Camouflage' Swastika Building

Google Earth views revive old controversy

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 27, 2007 1:10 PM CDT

(Newser) – When it was finished in 1970, officials realized a building at a San Diego Navy base looked like a swastika, the Guardian reports. But after images of the building from Google Earth sparked outrage, the Navy has decided to do something about it. The Navy will spend $600,000 to “camouflage” the building with landscaping and solar panels, it announced yesterday.

In a pre-internet era, it didn’t seem like a big deal to add extra L-shaped barracks to the one originally planned. The architect insists it’s not a true swastika. “It's four L-shaped buildings,” he said. “Looking at it from the ground or the air, it still is.” But no denial will quell the conspiracy theorists swarming around the story.

[Images (3)]

[Videos (1)]

After initial controversy after it's construction in 1967, the building's shape was largely forgotten until a coalition of activists discovered it thanks to aerial viewing software, such as this Google... (Google Earth)

A swastika decorates a Buddhist temple in Korea. Before being adopted as the symbol of the Nazi party, the Swastika was a common image in many cultures, including serving as a good-luck charm to early... (www.davejenkins.com)

Now universally associated with the Nazi party in the western world, painting a swastika in a public building is considered a hate crime, raising a dilemma when the building itself appears to be a swastika... (Wikimedia Commons)

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Navy to 'Camouflage' Swastika Building