I feel like Joy Division certainly did flirt with fascist imagery. I wasn’t around at the time, but I’m aware that within punk and post-punk there was the idea of stripping meaning and power from controversial imagery and symbolism by overtly using and subverting that imagery. Arguably, I don’t think that approach worked. But I feel a large part of the way bands like Joy Division used this was based on that ideal. The band name was deliberately taken from the name of a sexual slavery wing of a Nazi concentration camp, though.

Also, I think Curtis was a bit of a contrarian. It seems like he enjoyed getting a rise out of people and the establishment at the time.