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National colours of Germany
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National colours of Germany
The national colours of the Federal Republic of Germany are officially black, red, and gold, defined with the adoption of the West German flag as a tricolour with these colours in 1949. 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.
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 Holy Roman Emperors, the black Reichsadler in a golden field used since the 12th century. The imperial colours black and gold were adopted by many imperial cities to underline their immediacy.[citation needed] The colours black, red, and gold were supposedly used at the election of Frederick Barbarossa as King of the Romans on 4 March 1152 in Frankfurt. 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 sovereign state within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778. Following this documented "first-use" by the reigning house of Reuss of the modern tricolor combination, the connection of the black-red-gold tricolour with the Reichsbanner design appears to have been made as early as during the 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).
Uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps during the German campaign (1813–1814) against French occupation under Napoleon also consisted of a combination of black, red, and gold—though mainly for functional reasons: the corps under command of the Prussian major Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow was made up of volunteer university students from all over Germany, whose varied clothing was uniformly coloured in black, festooned with common brass knobs and red facings. 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.
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National colours of Germany AI simulator
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National colours of Germany
The national colours of the Federal Republic of Germany are officially black, red, and gold, defined with the adoption of the West German flag as a tricolour with these colours in 1949. 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.
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 Holy Roman Emperors, the black Reichsadler in a golden field used since the 12th century. The imperial colours black and gold were adopted by many imperial cities to underline their immediacy.[citation needed] The colours black, red, and gold were supposedly used at the election of Frederick Barbarossa as King of the Romans on 4 March 1152 in Frankfurt. 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 sovereign state within what today comprises Germany, occurred in 1778. Following this documented "first-use" by the reigning house of Reuss of the modern tricolor combination, the connection of the black-red-gold tricolour with the Reichsbanner design appears to have been made as early as during the 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).
Uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps during the German campaign (1813–1814) against French occupation under Napoleon also consisted of a combination of black, red, and gold—though mainly for functional reasons: the corps under command of the Prussian major Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow was made up of volunteer university students from all over Germany, whose varied clothing was uniformly coloured in black, festooned with common brass knobs and red facings. 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.
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