Flag of Germany

The national flag of Germany (German: Flagge Deutschlands) is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red, and gold (German: Schwarz-Rot-Gold). The flag was first sighted in 1848 in the German Confederation. The flag was also used by the German Empire from 1848 to 1849. It was officially adopted as the national flag of the German Reich (during the period of the Weimar Republic) from 1919 to 1933, and has been in use since its reintroduction in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.

Since the mid-19th century, Germany has had two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red. Black-red-gold were the colours of the 1848–1849 Revolutions, the Weimar Republic of 1919–1933 and the Federal Republic (since 1949). They were also adopted by the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990).

The colours black-white-red appeared for the first time in 1867 in the constitution of the North German Confederation. This nation state for Prussia and other north and central German States was expanded to the south German states in 1870–71, under the name German Empire. It kept these colours until the revolution of 1918–19. Thereafter, black-white-red became a symbol of the political right. The Nazis (National Socialist German Worker's Party) re-established these colours along with the party's own swastika flag in 1933. After World War II, black-white-red was still used by some conservative groups or by groups of the far right, as it is not forbidden, unlike specific Nazi symbols such as the aforementioned swastika.

Black-red-gold is the official flag of the Federal Republic of Germany. As an official symbol of the constitutional order, it is protected against defamation. According to §90a of the German penal code, the consequences are a fine or imprisonment up to three years.

The German association with the colours black, red, and gold surfaced in the radical 1840s, when the black-red-gold flag was used to symbolise the movement against the Conservative Order, which was established in Europe after Napoleon's defeat.

There are many theories in circulation regarding the origins of the colour scheme used in the 1848 flag. It has been proposed that the colours were those of the Jena Students' League (Jenaer Burschenschaft), one of the radically minded Burschenschaften banned by Metternich in the Carlsbad Decrees. The colours are mentioned in their canonical order in the seventh verse of August Daniel von Binzer's student song Zur Auflösung der Jenaer Burschenschaft ("On the Dissolution of the Jena Students' League") quoted by Johannes Brahms in his Academic Festival Overture. Another claim goes back to the uniforms (mainly black with red facings and gold buttons) of the Lützow Free Corps, which were mostly worn by university students and were formed during the struggle against the occupying forces of Napoleon. Whatever the true explanation, those colours soon came to be regarded as the national colours of Germany during that brief period. Especially after their reintroduction during the Weimar period, they became synonymous with liberalism in general. (The colours also appear in the medieval Reichsadler.)

The German national flag or Bundesflagge (English: Federal flag), containing only the black-red-gold tricolour, was introduced as part of the (West) German constitution in 1949. Following the creation of separate government and military flags in later years, the plain tricolour is now used as the German civil flag and civil ensign. This flag is also used by non-federal authorities to show their connection to the federal government, e.g. the authorities of the German states use the German national flag together with their own flag.

The government flag of Germany is officially known as the Dienstflagge der Bundesbehörden (state flag of the federal authorities) or Bundesdienstflagge for short. It was introduced in 1950. It is the civil flag defaced with the Bundesschild ("Federal Shield"), which overlaps with up to one fifth of the black and gold bands. The Bundesschild is a variant of the coat of arms of Germany, whose main differences are the illustration of the eagle and the shape of the shield: the Bundesschild is rounded at the base, whereas the standard coat of arms is pointed.