The German Flag
One topic I particularly enjoyed was the one dealing with ‘The Great Flag Debate’. Not only did I find it very amusing to look at the various flag-ideas the New Zealanders came up with, but it also made me think about our own country. How many flags did Germany have until now? What role did the colors black, red and gold play and have they always been part of our flag? Did we ever have a flag debate like New Zealand and what would we put on a new German flag, if we were to make suggestions…
Doing some research I found out that black, red and gold have been the main colors of the German flag for many decades and can be traced back to the medieval banner of the Holy Roman Empire — a black eagle with red claws and beak on a golden background.
The Holy Roman Empire was a multi-ethnic empire with German-majority in central Europe from its beginning in 962 until it was defeated by Napoleon in 1806 at the Battle of Austerlitz (one of Napoleon’s greatest victories!) German-states that were part of the Holy Roman Empire came under French rule and several German organizations started movements to free Germany from foreign domination and to create a unified country. Popular among them were two organizations — Luetzow Free Corps and Jena Student’s League — whose members wore uniforms of black with gold and red accessories and used flags of those colors as well.
In 1848, a parliament representing all German states in one assembly was elected for the first time. This parliament (meeting place was the famous ‘Paulskirche’ in Frankfurt) chose black, red and gold as official colors for the Confederation.
Up until today, it is not quite certain why exactly these colors had been picked. The most likely theory is that the color combination derives from a Prussian corps defending Germany against the occupation by the French in 1813 and whose members came from many different parts of Germany. As they didn’t have a uniform of their own, they actually dyed all uniforms of their men black, while the buttons remained golden and the ensigns mainly red. When Germany was unified in 1871 under Otto von Bismarck, it chose a national flag with horizontal stripes of black-white-red (black and white are the colors of Prussia, of which Bismarck was Chancellor, and red was from the Hanseatic League). Interesting, it really seems like the black color on our flag derives from the Prussian people…
The new German Empire continued to carry this flag up to the time of WWI. When the country was re-founded in 1919 as the Weimar Republic, the old black-red-gold colors officially became the national flag once again.
As a matter of fact some Germans regarded this very act as a dishonor to their country, so when Hitler seized power in 1933, he was quick to re-establish the black-white-red tricolor (even though with a different symbol) and ban the black-red-gold flag once again. The good thing is that therefore our current flag colors can’t be related to the the atrocities of the Third Reich… When Germany was split a few years later, the traditional German colors for democracy, black, red, and gold, were used both on the eastern and the western side, only with the difference that the German Democratic Republic added the socialist symbols of hammer, compass and a ring of rye to its flag.
Finally, when the two parts of Germany were reunited in 1990, the unified country continued using the black-red-gold flag of West Germany! And I know it’s hard to believe, but we still have it! Just like we still have the same colors on our flag that we had on the medieval banner of the Holy Roman Empire.
Seems like there hasn’t been much change and variety over all these years. So I was wondering: If we had a flag debate in Germany in 2017 (I know, this not very realistic as Germany is likely to have more serious problems, but let’s just be a little creative), what would we put on our new flag?
There’s hardly anything more German than a stein of beer referring to the annual ‘Oktoberfest’ that is well known in mostly every country of the world.
Or how about we put some pretzels and ‘Weisswurst’ on it? Certainly another thing Germany would be recognized with at first glance. Staying with food, I’m also convinced that bread would be very representative for us Germans as we have more than 300 sorts of bread which is crazy!!
Nature-lovers would probably like a good picture of the Baltic Sea, the Alps or the chalk cliffs of Ruegen. Did you know that the cornflower is the national flower and the endangered white stork the national bird of Germany? That’d make a nice flag motive for sure.
We shouldn’t forget about the German cars like Volkswagen, Audi, BMW and Ford that are sold internationally and known all over the world! I was also thinking about a blue flag that says ‘No limits in Germany’ — seriously, most of my overseas friends think there are NO speed limits AT ALL in Germany! My favourite one is a Bavarian in Lederhosen on green background with a grim and extremely serious facial expression standing for the humourless, prudish and narrow-minded average German.
