People forget how the raised arm salute was very common prior to its adoption by the German Nazi party.
It was believed (incorrectly) to be the salutation of the Roman Empire, thank mainly to a few painters of the Italian renascence period.
The same can be said for the hakenkreuz which was used in heraldry as a symbol for light, in Hinduism as a sun sign and in the Catholic Church as the symbol of St. Michael. Until that is Hitler made it his flag, and the British propaganda machine renamed it from the hakenkreuz (hooked cross) to the Swastika (A Sanskrit mystic's word "svastika" meaning luck or fortune in the sense of an omen or a prophesy) to make it sound more evil.