History+of+the+German+Flag

Matt Schofield

German Flag The Flag of Germany has come a long way to look how it is today. What you see today is no where close to what you saw 700 years ago when the land was controlled by the Holy Roman Empire. During the 14th century their flag was a black eagle on a golden background with a red beak and talons. Not until the 15th century did the eagle have two heads instead of one. This flag held until 1815, when the Jena Urburschenschaft adopted a flag with three equal horizontal stripes of black red and gold. Although this is the modern day flag, the German Flag had a few more changes before turning into what it is today. On September 22, 1866, the secretary of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce, Adolf Soetbeer, proposed that for the flag for the new confederation should include the colors of Prussia, black and white, and Hanseatic colors, red and white. The next year when the constitution of the North German Confederation was enacted, they declared a horizontal black-white-red tricolor as both their civil and war ensign. This would remain as their flag until the end of the German Empire in 1918 in the final days of World War I. In 1919 the Wiemar Republic declared that their flag would be the old German flag with a horizontal black-red-gold striped pattern. Many citizens were angered by this decision, protesting that it was a symbol of humiliation of their loss in World War I. On January 30, 1933, with the establishment of Nazi Regime in Germany, the flag was reintroduced as black-white-red. This design ended with the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1935. The new flag consisted of a red background with a white disk in the middle including a black swastika. Hitler explains in his book Mein Kampf that he wanted to include the the same colors of black, white, and red to honor Imperial Germany. After the end of World War I, the swastika was taken off of the German flag and was banned from all future flags. After the war, while under Allied control, Germany had no flag or government until 1949 when Germany once again adopted the black-red-yellow tricolor flag. This flag still stands until present day. The rich record of the German Flag is very thought provoking. There is a lot of history behind it, and it means a lot to the Germans. The flag deeply reflects German life and culture throughout the German Empire.