For me, I had Classic for a long time before I got the more modern versions of the game, so my copy of Classic is weathered and well-used. To me, I never thought twice about the box art having the German Reich flag with swastika on the box… to me, its nothing more than “well that IS the flag they flew during WWII”… it means nothing more to me. It’s like the US should have a flag with 48-stars not 50, because a 48-star flag IS what the US flew during WWII.
I now have the more modern versions of the game, but never once did I even notice that the German flag is completely obscured in every modern version of A&A until I saw your post mentioning this… I went back and did a double-take looking over all my boxes, and by golly, every single German flag is completely obscured on all the newer editions… I never noticed this.
I’ve known about German censorship laws for a long time… I’m going to avoid the politics debate and just stick to the marketing. I’ve always assumed the German crosses used in more modern games (where old board games always had swastikas) was for worldwide marketing reasons, because they’re just not allowed in Germany… but this begs the question… “What about Classic A&A”… there it is for all the world to see, the German Reich flag on Classic A&A… few in America would bat an eyelash, but I know it’s illegal in Germany… did Classic A&A not sell in Germany, or did they release different box art in Germany for Classic? If its the latter, why didn’t they keep the Reich flag on modern copies of A&A stateside and just release a different box art for sales in Germany? I mean one trip to the movie theatre or watching a WWII documentary you see swastikas all the time, I’m not sure why box art on a WWII board game is verboten while movies and tv are not? I am really curious about why Classic had it and if Classic was sold in Germany. Those laws have been in place for decades (if not since the end of WWII itself).