National colours of Germany

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Black, Red, and Gold barrier cord at the German Bundestag parliament

The

tricolour with these colours in 1949.[2] Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and both Germanies retained the black, red, and gold colors on their respective flags. After German reunification
in 1990, the united Germany retained the West German flag, thus retaining black, red, and gold as Germany's colors.

The colours ultimately hark back to the tricolour adopted by the Urburschenschaft of Jena in 1815, representing an early phase in the development of German nationalism and the idea of a unified German state. Since the 1860s, there has been a competing tradition of national colours as black, white, and red, based on the Hanseatic flags, used as the flag of the North German Confederation and the German Empire. The Weimar Republic in 1919 opted to re-introduce the black, red, and gold tricolour. This was controversial, and as a compromise, the old flag was reintroduced in 1922 to represent German diplomatic missions abroad. As a reaction, Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold was an organization formed in 1924 representing the parties supporting parliamentary democracy, and for the remainder of the existence of the Weimar Republic, black-red-gold represented the centrist parties supporting parliamentary and black-white-red represented its nationalist and monarchist opposition.

Black, red, and gold

Supposed pre-modern origins

Further information: Coat of arms of Germany
Coat of arms of Emperor Henry VI, Codex Manesse
Reichsbanner
of the Holy Roman Emperors as used from the 15th century

The choice of black, red, and gold as national colours was retrospectively motivated by occurrence of this combination of colours in the medieval coat of arms of the

Frederick Barbarossa as King of the Romans on 4 March 1152 in Frankfurt.[3] According to contemporary sources, the new king's way from Frankfurt Cathedral to the Römer square was covered with a coloured carpet, which was afterwards cut into numerous small parts and distributed to the crowds. A red-clawed, -beaked and -tongued imperial eagle was used from the 14th century onwards, as depicted in the Codex Manesse
about 1304.

The Habsburg monarchy used the colours black and gold as its dynastic flag from about 1700; when emperor Francis II abdicated from the throne in 1806, he adopted the colours as the flag of his Austrian Empire.[clarification needed]

The black-red-gold tricolour's first known appearance on a state flag, anywhere in a German-ethnicity

March Revolution. Ferdinand Freiligrath
in his poem Schwarz-Rot-Gold, published 1851 and dated 17 March 1848, has the lines Das ist das alte Reichspanier, Das sind die alten Farben! ("This is the old imperial banner, these are the old colours!"), and in addition provides a symbolism for the colours as Pulver ist schwarz, Blut ist rot, Golden flackert die Flamme! ("Gunpowder is black, blood is red, golden flares the flame!").

Communist authors also attributed use of the colours by insurgents of the 1525 German Peasants' War, so Friedrich Engels in his The Peasant War in Germany (1850, p. 91), and Albert Norden, Um die Nation (1953, p. 17).

Wars of Liberation

Urburschenschaft banner (replica)

Uniforms of the

Uhlan forces used red and black lance pennons
.

Black, red, and gold – if even in reverse order compared to nowadays, i.e. gold at the top – resembling the former imperial colours soon became symbols of the German struggle for freedom, symbolizing the road from servitude (black) through bloody fight (red) to the stars (gold), similar to the famous saying

per aspera ad astra (to the stars through difficulties). This interpretive culture was perpetuated in the memory of venerated martyrs like Theodor Körner. The red and black colours with a golden oak leaf cluster were adopted as couleur by the first German national Urburschenschaft student fraternity established on 12 June 1815 in Jena, and publicly displayed on the 1817 Wartburg Festival
.

The students' hopes of a national awakening dashed with the implementation of the

Revolutions of 1848
.

March Revolution

Frankfurt Parliament, St. Paul's Church, decorated with Germania

As a result of the 1848 revolutions, the

Hofburg Palace. In Berlin, King Frederick William IV of Prussia had to bow to the fallen insurgents of the liberation movement and to wear a Black, Red and Gold armband
while riding through the city.

When on 18 May 1848 the Frankfurt Parliament first convened, the city streets were decorated in the "German colours" like the assembly room in St. Paul's Church. On November 12, the parliament passed a resolution whereafter black-red-gold became the German war and merchant flag. However, as official flag of the German Confederation, the tricolour was mainly used in the small Imperial fleet (Reichsflotte), which was dissolved by 1852. The Frankfurt Constitution, adopted in 1849 and never carried into effect, omitted any provision of national symbols. After the dissolution of the Frankfurt Parliament, the tricolour vanished from public space. Mocked by Heinrich Heine as "old Germanic rubbish", it nevertheless remained the official flag of the German Confederation, "revitalized" in 1866 as the banner of Austria and her allies in the War with Prussia and the North German states.

Black, white, and red

North German merchant flag, 1868

After the war and the breakup of the German Confederation, the Prussian-led North German Confederation was established at the instance of Minister-President Otto von Bismarck to answer the German question. Another colour scheme was desired, as the black and gold colours were associated with Habsburg Austria. From 1867, the black, white, and red colours became the flag of the newly established federated state; the tricolour derived from the combination of the Prussian black and white with the white and red flag of the North German Hanseatic League.

Since the 13th century, a black cross on white coat had been carried by medieval

Teutonic Knights which had founded the State of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. Their Grand Master Hermann von Salza received the rights to bear the imperial black eagle by the 1226 Golden Bull of Rimini, issued by Emperor Frederick II, to indicate that he enjoyed imperial immediacy as a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire. When the Teutonic state was secularized in 1525 as the Duchy of Prussia, the black eagle on a white shield became the Prussian coat of arms. The ruling House of Hohenzollern
also had a black and white family coat of arms.

In addition to the black and white of Prussia, the white and red colours of the former

Free Imperial Cities, took pride in their centuries-old Hanseatic tradition. The navy commander Prince Adalbert of Prussia strongly advocated the implementation of a combined tricolour of Prussian black and white and Hanseatic white and red as a war flag and a civil ensign. Bismarck ("I don't care whatsoever about those colors! Whatever, green and yellow and dancing pleasure, or the flag of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
...") made no objections.

"One People! One Emperor! One God!", German postcard, about 1900

From the 1871

German unification until 1918, black, white, and red were widely accepted as the national colours of the German Empire, though they were not officially adopted as the imperial flag by law before 1892. Numerous German associations embraced the patriotic tricolour, and sports organisations that were founded prior to World War I
often choose white with additional black and/or red as their colours.

State colours

In the

German Revolution of 1918–19, the "imperialist" black, white, and red were abandoned in favour of the "democratic" black, red, and gold colours of 1848. In view of Germany's unfortunate position after the lost war and under the terms of the Versailles Treaty, monarchist and German National forces advocated the retention of the imperial colours as a matter of national pride. Since then, and up to today, black, white, and red are often associated with right wing radicalism because of their use by right wing parties and in far-right
circles.

Weimar Republic

Though even liberal deputies in the Weimar National Assembly spoke against a change of colours, Article 3 of the German Constitution of 11 August 1919 determined black, red, and gold both for the tricolour national flag and the eagle coat of arms of the Weimar Republic. Considering the preceding debates however, the former black, white, and red colours were retained as the German civil ensign, with black, red, and gold in the upper left corner. Not until 1922, the Reichskriegsflagge banner was officially outlawed on ships of the German Navy. The official black, red, and gold colours were refused by wide circles in the Reichswehr armed forces and World War I veterans' associations.

The issue of the national colours was, however, continuously debated in the German society.

German-Austria to Germany. Most of the centrist political parties were in favour of the new colours, but many people of different political views still felt that black, white, and red were the true colours of Germany. The flag of the Weimar Republic was insulted by conservatives and nationalists, Communists and Nazis alike, who sometimes referred to it as "black-red-yellow" or even "black-red-mustard", if not even worse. In 1921, even Gustav Stresemann, chairman of the national liberal German People's Party argued for the reintroduction of black, white, and red. In May 1926, the German government of Chancellor Hans Luther
had to resign after a quarrel over the display of flags at German embassies.

To encounter antidemocratic forces, the

Allgemeiner freier Angestelltenbund trade unions to form the democratic Iron Front
. With the Weimar democracy, the black, red, and gold colours went down fighting.

Nazi rule

Upon the

German federal election, Reich President Paul von Hindenburg re-introduced black, white, and red as official decorations on the coming Volkstrauertag public holiday. Alongside the swastika
flag of the Nazi Party, the imperial colours were restored as a provisional national symbol, subject to a final decision by the German government. The concurrent Nazi flag also used a combination of black, white, and red colours, but not in the same way as the old flag of the German Empire. Instead, red was the dominant colour.

After Hindenburg's death on 2 August 1934, Hitler styled himself

Reich Chancellor. By law of 15 September 1935 he declared black, white, and red again the national colours but made his own Nazi Party swastika the sole national flag and civil ensign of Germany. National conservative protests had become silent. In a speech, Reichstag president Hermann Göring
called the black, white, and red flag of the German Empire "honorably pulled down".

Post-war

The German Unity Flag is raised as national memorial to German reunification in front of the Reichstag in Berlin on 3 October 1990.

After

United Team of Germany, which had first competed in 1956, had to add white Olympic rings to the flag for the games of 1960 and 1964, and also for 1968 when two separate German teams entered under common symbols. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, East German citizens cut out the socialist symbols of the East German flag in order to show support for a unification with West Germany, which had also continued the use of the traditional eagle coat of arms, called Bundesadler
.

In the Federal Republic of Germany (since 1949), and especially after the 1960s, only very

monarchists
display the old colours.

Use of colours in sports

German rower Richard Nagel, wearing white with a red chest band

German sports teams often use white as a main colour, as organisations that had been founded prior to 1919 often have chosen the

international auto racing colour scheme, painted white with red numbers (since 1934, Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union have used unpainted metal, or silver
).

Between 1918 and 1933, and after 1945, black-red-gold again became the national colours. Organisations founded in that time frame, such as the German

American Football Association (AFVD)[6] or the German Organisation of Non-Olympic sports (IGNOV),[7]
often use black-red-gold in their colours, mostly on a white background. In recent years, most national teams of older organisations have added black-red-gold trim to their uniforms.

See also

References

  1. ^ The "gold" (Or) is nearly always represented by a shade of yellow, as there is no distinct color "yellow" in heraldry; they both count as "gold".
  2. ^ Article 22 sec. 2 of the German Basic Law constitution: Die Bundesflagge ist schwarz-rot-gold. ("The federal flag shall be black, red, and gold.").
  3. ^ George Henry Preble: The symbols, standards, flags, and banners of ancient and modern nations, prior to 1900, reprint: Flag Research Center, Winchester, USA.[page needed]
  4. ^ "Das Leichtathletik-Portal - Start".
  5. ^ "Home". rudern.de.
  6. ^ "Home". afvd.de.
  7. ^ "IG Nov". Archived from the original on 2007-06-27. Retrieved 2007-07-05.
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