There is a similar story behind the swastika.
What most people who discuss the swastika are referring to is the hakenkruis, the word used by the Germans themselves, which is a Germanic and/or Teutonic heraldic symbol meaning the conquest of death and resurrection. Hence the sign or national rebirth from a field of blood being the Nazi symbol.
The actual Swastika is a part of the swastika and sauwastika duality symbol which was a Eurasian version of the Yin and Yang which are mirror images of each other symbolizing light and dark.
In China the symbol is called the Wanzi and symbolizes "the whole of creation" in Japan and Korea it is the Manji.
The symbol has positive connotations where ever it is found all over the world with the sole exception of Nazi Germany.
The choice to call it the Swastika was purely a matter of propaganda, the word Hakenkruis (Bent cross) did not sound "evil enough" and ironically because in that form had appeared in the prophesies of Nostrodamus as the sign of the second anti-Christ.
Identifying Hitler as such was thought to give to much credit to him and tied him to heroic tales of the Tuetonic Holy church Knights, so the name was changed to the much more ancient and none Christian name to make the nazi appear evil, and tied in with black magic and the occult.

Flags, banners and symbols can be made to appears as symbolic s what ever you wish to be.
Hence to a frightening large contingent of the USA public the flag of Robert E Lee is nothing more than the flag of the Dukes of Hazzard.