If it was anyplace else but Germany, I would be willing to accept the random chance argument.
But in the heart of Deutschland? No way this was random.
Much lower than the odds of it being some bored and possibly drunk laborer.
Might need a better look at the rest of the brick layout, but given what we can see, that is definitely no coincidence. The rest of the bricks display a certain kind of âdesignedâ randomness. But they seem to be largely grouped in similar orientations and color. I mean, itâs just obviously not a coincidence. Maybe if we saw other clusters of red brick that appeared somewhat similar, itâs like calling a polygonal shape amongst a field of vaguely circular shapes a random occurence.
That would also explain the misshapennessâŚ
LOL, the symmetry is broken at right angles but holds when mirrored.
What are the odds that the person placing the bricks didnât notice the design? Thatâs what seems most suspicious about this to me.
My god â it looks like the German police is just about as dense as his typical American colleague, when the official police spokesman âwarns against sharing the photo as a posting on personal social media accounts could already be seen as a violation of German law.ââ, even though the relevant law clearly excludes reporting from the forbidden uses.
If youâve ever done any tiling youâll know that you canât actually do ârandomâ. Each tile has to slot next to the other with an equal grouting all round. Any pieces that donât fit perfectly have to be ground to shape. Thus, in an intricate pattern, usually a âdry-layâ is done first, so they can be laid on the adhesive fairly swiftly whilst itâs still â â â â â enough to âtackâ.
Hard to tell but the swastika doe seem to defy some of the ways everything else is laid out. Most of the bricks seems to be running in the same direction as the bricks close to them so they form a larger tile of bricks oriented in the same way.
The swastika has a large number of exceptions to that. much more than anywhere else in the picture.
I assume they dodged the fine and will find some other way to fire the jerk-wad.
This isnât tiling though, itâs paving stones. From my understanding, there is no grout or adhesive involved. Iâve seen a few installations of paving stones, but never done one.
From my very limited observation, what happens is that thereâs a flat bed of sand or whatever the underlay will be, the stones are laid out on it, sand is poured in the cracks, and the whole thing is packed in place with some combination of large mechanical tampers and rubber mallet work for stones sticking up especially badly, and finally the excess sand is swept away.
Anybody know the demographics of people likely to be doing masonry/paving work in Germany? Iâd certainly assume that anybody familiar with 20th century German history (whether for or against) would notice it; but Iâd also be prepared to believe that the job was handled by whatever labor was cheapest, and that such labor might well hail from elsewhere.
Youâre right. Though the premise of cutting to arrange the paving stones remains. The spaces around the paving stones stays even.
Iâve laid many tiles, of all description. Not done any sand-bed paving though.
Any chance its a Buddhist or Hindu swastika?
If they had only used these tiles, it would have been impossible to produce a Swastika, accidentally or not.
I assume that also depends on how much paved area weâre talking about. Any clues on how big the footpath is, or how many footpaths in Germany are paved using similar designs?
At any rate I agree that it seems unlikely that this would go unnoticed by the contractor even if it did show up randomly.
My argument is for âno accidentâ. I think the worker had to cut the nearly-square bricks that make up the negative space in the swastika. Looking at the sizes of the bricks that were used to make up the swastika, the nearly-square bricks that make up the negative space only occur 3 times in the photo. The rest of the brick sizes recur many times.
You didnât get the memo. The symbol now stands for everything that is hateful in society.
OK, but to be perfectly fair we also have to remember:
- Presumably this pattern would be just as striking if turned 90 degrees or with reversed colors
- The â1 in 963120â might be true for any given set of 22 bricks, but how many TOTAL bricks are in this footpath (and similar footpaths)?
Iâm still leaning toward ânot an accidentâ though.
Minimal of course, but in Germany that wouldnât be an excuse.
