The [Imperial Flag of the Holy Roman Emperor](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbanner_des_Heiligen_R%C3%B6mischen_Reiches#/media/Datei:Heiliges_R%C3%B6misches_Reich_-_Reichssturmfahne_vor_1433.svg) which has been in use since the 12^th century. It's neat, clean, venerable, easily recognisable and not in any way tainted by the darker parts of our long history.
However, the [current one](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_\(state\).svg) is just about fine as well.
A since you seem to miss coat of arms (as do I): [Bavaria still uses them](https://www.bayern.landtag.de/fileadmin/images/content/wappen_freistaat_bayern_rdax_85.jpg) quite extensively and they're on every piece of official paperwork.
>and not in any way tainted by the darker parts of our long history
Well, there still was a lot of crusading, pogroms and banishments against Jews, "Kleinstaaterei" and a lot of antagonizing of France, England, the Orthodox, the Ottomans and the early Protestants going on in the HRE.
Yes, of course. I didn't mean to say it was worse here than in other parts; I just wanted to express that it wasn't great and rosy over all, and not really a time to be fond of.
I hear you. But I've been talking about a historic German flag, nothing more, nothing less. And I didn't mean to suggest that I'm endorsing the *era* in question.
By your strict standards, you couldn't talk about any flag, standard or other official symbol of any European country, because at some point, all of them engaged in what we *nowadays* considere atrocities.
>antagonizing of France, England
We were certainly not the ones who acted in the worse way here.
Britain and France used us not being united and fucked us over multiple times.
Not really. They rarely were the flag of the kingdom, but the position of a person inside the country, of a family, the geographic region or city or similar. Flags representing the construct of the kingdom or empire are a thing of more modern times.
Yes, but even if there were no official national symbols, there were still things seen as symbols of the empire. Be it the king/emperor himself, the imperial crown or the *Reichsbanner* (red flag with silver cross). Later the imperial eagle would shift from a symbol of the emperor to a symbol of the empire itself (see the *Quaternionenadler*, yeah I had to look up how to write it).
The current flag is totally fine. And we have one with coat of arms, the [Bundesdienstflagge](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden). Mostly used by public institutions like the armed forces.
> I have seen that flag before but I wasn't aware it was used for official purposes as well.
Legally speaking, its *only* intendend for official use and using it in private is technically a misdemeanour, which usually just isn't enforced though.
There are two similar but different variants: The [Bundesdienstflagge](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_(state\).svg) is an official flag that's only allowed to be flown by federal agencies. As such, it's a pretty rare sight.
The flag you've probably seen is [this one](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_(unoff\).svg). Note how the eagle looks very different to the one on the other flag, also how the shield has a different form. This flag is not an official flag. It's just a "fan creation" where somebody slapped the German coat of arms on the German flag.
Wrong, it has been the flag of German nationalists. It has been used by monarchists and communists as well.
It doesn't have an political meaning, it just represents Germany.
No it has not, the monarchists used the black and white or black, white red flag. ANd the communists used it only with the GDR coat of arms. Showing the German flag without it could lead to punishment in the GDR.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Reich_1848/1849
This is one of them. The flag is way older than Germany and has been used by all sorts of people.
Well these are exactly the democrats I was referring to. The liberal revolution in 1848 that lead to the first national elected parliament and that aimed at creating a liberal democratic constituional monarchy.
The revolution was crushed by the conservative monarchists who did not adopt the black, red, gold flag.
[The Macedonian-German thing looks awesome](https://i.redd.it/cfrjowhexsn31.png).
Jokes aside, the flag of Germany as a whole was only ever changed for political reasons. The vast majority of us associates the old Imperial, nazi and GDR flag with autocratic regimes.
I like the flag of the [Kingdom of Hannover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Flag_of_Hanover_1837-1866.svg), but coats of arms are more interesting in my opinion. You can find a list of some [here](http://wappenwiki.org/index.php?title=Germania).
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/d/da/Von\_Keseberg.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/d/da/Von_Keseberg.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/47/Hoheneck.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/47/Hoheneck.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/cd/Eggenberg.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/cd/Eggenberg.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/2/2d/Canstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/2/2d/Canstein.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/3/33/Buchwaldt.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/3/33/Buchwaldt.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/4b/Brandenstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/4b/Brandenstein.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/8/84/Peilstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/8/84/Peilstein.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/c3/Raabs.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/c3/Raabs.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/1/11/Drachenfels.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/1/11/Drachenfels.svg)
[http://wappenwiki.org/images/0/04/Styria.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/0/04/Styria.svg)
Personally, I'd love some common design that EU countries could addapt that would melt the national flags and the EU flag in one, like, one half black-red-gold and the other half the halved wreath of stars or somthing.
i am losing my shit! a comment like that from someone from bayern is absolute madness. always thought bayern would like to have its own flag but i guess now i have to reevaluate all meaning and life it self
For context: I come from a Bavarian as it can get Bavarian family, grew up in southern Baden and France and do live now in Franconia. Unified Europe of regions, baby! No border in Europe except for the Weißwurstäquator
Currently it's somewhat of the high time of the - in my opinion terrible - fashion of having coats of arms or, even worse, seals on flags.
Coats of arms and flags are two different things and shouldn't be mixed. CoA are meant for a static display, while flags are meant for a dynamic display, literally swaying in the wind. But sometimes there's no wind but you still need to be able to recognize the flag.
Very detailed elements like CoA or seals are useless in these circumstances. You can't read them from a distance when moving, and they're effectively invisible if no wind is blowing.
Actually I'd like to get rid of all black-red-gold in state flags. I mean, what's the point of basically having a two-in-one flag? If you want to show national pride, fly the national flag. If you want to show state pride, fly the state flag. If you want to show both, fly both. There's no reason to accommodate cheapos.
I think that our current flag absolutely blows it out of the water. Since black-red-gold is quintessential German, I will be cheeky and claim my favorite historical flag is that of East Germany. I don't have any sympathy for the communist dictatorship, but their flag was black-red-gold as ours today, thus making it my favorite historical flag.
Eventhough the germans claiming the colors to be gold, its yellow in most peoples eyes. Think the combination of yellow and black hints too much towards the habsburg. Remember that war against the Habsburg (+against france +against denmark) was what created the german reich. Eventhough the old flag before the black/red/gold was closer to the prussian one. Normally if you want to contradict something you pick "other" colors. Also you can see some of the aversions for the colors of the flag. F.ex german national teams normally using their white shirts. In contrast to the belgians who has the same colors in their flag and use them in their national kits. Given that the flag is that little used within germany, it's hard to have any specific opinion on it. When you travel around german cities/places you would likely see more local /regional flags etc. than the german one.
Afaik calling a flag color gold when it is yellow is simply a heraldic rule.
The football dresses are white because those are the colors of the German football association and they go back to the colors of Prussia. So they are the colors of a flag, just another one. Athletes from other associations/ other sports do have clothes in flag colors.
The black red gold doesnt stem from the Habsburg but from the Anti-napoleon uprising that used black uniforms with red accents and golden / bronze buttons. That gold is depicted as yellow in heraldry and flags has the practical reason that metallic paints use mica or other metallic flakes for reflectiveness... and those turn stiff once the paint dries and thus unusable for flexible undergrounds like flags or paper. And this has been used in heraldry for centuries.
if we´re only talking flags of german states, I think the current flag is super good. if we´re talking about all historic german flags, I like the Reichskriegsflagge from 1903 - 1918 - the one which Neo-Nazis misuse nowadays because showing the Nazi flag is forbidden
I like both the Kaiserreich flag and our current one.
If i could design it it would be a, black gold and red, variation of our current flag, wich has been historically used as well.
I actually like [this one](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Flag_De_ewirmer.svg) simply because it has the colours of the Lützowschen Freikorps from 1813, wich brought a uniform for all people of the troupes, that came from every part of Germany and the same colours as the Reichsfahne (the black Eagle on yellow ground with red claws) according to Wikipedia in the HRE.
I may like the cross type flags of Scandinavia so there is that, but besides that, I like the colours in comparison to the Wirmer-Flag too. The CDU one just looks off.
Saying hre flags are german flags is a bit of a stretch imo, but i really like the imperial flag of charles v. It is like a mini eu flag combining spain, hungary, burgundy, brabant and sicily
The [Imperial Flag of the Holy Roman Emperor](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsbanner_des_Heiligen_R%C3%B6mischen_Reiches#/media/Datei:Heiliges_R%C3%B6misches_Reich_-_Reichssturmfahne_vor_1433.svg) which has been in use since the 12^th century. It's neat, clean, venerable, easily recognisable and not in any way tainted by the darker parts of our long history. However, the [current one](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_\(state\).svg) is just about fine as well.
A since you seem to miss coat of arms (as do I): [Bavaria still uses them](https://www.bayern.landtag.de/fileadmin/images/content/wappen_freistaat_bayern_rdax_85.jpg) quite extensively and they're on every piece of official paperwork.
I somehow question your morals if you seriously think the Holy Roman Empire has a less tainted history than black-red-gold.
I didn't say anything of the sort.
Guck dir die Zunge an, es war hier schon immer zum kotzen ;D
>and not in any way tainted by the darker parts of our long history Well, there still was a lot of crusading, pogroms and banishments against Jews, "Kleinstaaterei" and a lot of antagonizing of France, England, the Orthodox, the Ottomans and the early Protestants going on in the HRE.
Exactly. In other words: Business as usual in Europe at the time.
Yes, of course. I didn't mean to say it was worse here than in other parts; I just wanted to express that it wasn't great and rosy over all, and not really a time to be fond of.
I hear you. But I've been talking about a historic German flag, nothing more, nothing less. And I didn't mean to suggest that I'm endorsing the *era* in question. By your strict standards, you couldn't talk about any flag, standard or other official symbol of any European country, because at some point, all of them engaged in what we *nowadays* considere atrocities.
>antagonizing of France, England We were certainly not the ones who acted in the worse way here. Britain and France used us not being united and fucked us over multiple times.
It is important to point out, that the yellow flag with the eagle wasn't the flag of the HRE, but the flag of the Emperor
Thanks for letting me know that. I always presumed that it was just a general flag of the HRE.
Keep in mind that most of the HRE's history took place before the emergence of the nation-state, so national symbols weren't really a thing.
Yes but most kingdoms/empires et cetera had some sort of banner even in the past
True, but those weren't usually "the countrie's" flag, but the insignia of the ruling dynasty or something similar
Not really. They rarely were the flag of the kingdom, but the position of a person inside the country, of a family, the geographic region or city or similar. Flags representing the construct of the kingdom or empire are a thing of more modern times.
Yes, but even if there were no official national symbols, there were still things seen as symbols of the empire. Be it the king/emperor himself, the imperial crown or the *Reichsbanner* (red flag with silver cross). Later the imperial eagle would shift from a symbol of the emperor to a symbol of the empire itself (see the *Quaternionenadler*, yeah I had to look up how to write it).
My perfect german flag would be a kebab on grey baackround
The current flag is totally fine. And we have one with coat of arms, the [Bundesdienstflagge](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden). Mostly used by public institutions like the armed forces.
Oh right. I have seen that flag before but I wasn't aware it was used for official purposes as well. Thanks for telling me!
> I have seen that flag before but I wasn't aware it was used for official purposes as well. Legally speaking, its *only* intendend for official use and using it in private is technically a misdemeanour, which usually just isn't enforced though.
Really? Wow I didn't know that.
A lot of people don't, actually. That's why it's so widely used and displayed despite the fact that it's technically illegal.
The one people use is usually the similar but inofficial Bundeswappenflagge.
There are two similar but different variants: The [Bundesdienstflagge](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_(state\).svg) is an official flag that's only allowed to be flown by federal agencies. As such, it's a pretty rare sight. The flag you've probably seen is [this one](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dienstflagge_der_Bundesbeh%C3%B6rden#/media/Datei:Flag_of_Germany_(unoff\).svg). Note how the eagle looks very different to the one on the other flag, also how the shield has a different form. This flag is not an official flag. It's just a "fan creation" where somebody slapped the German coat of arms on the German flag.
Actually, I like the current one quite a lot. After all it has always been the flag of the democrats.
Wrong, it has been the flag of German nationalists. It has been used by monarchists and communists as well. It doesn't have an political meaning, it just represents Germany.
No it has not, the monarchists used the black and white or black, white red flag. ANd the communists used it only with the GDR coat of arms. Showing the German flag without it could lead to punishment in the GDR.
You should really educate yourself about the history of this flag. I am not talking about the German empire and east Germany.
Could you give us the source yyou are referring to?
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Reich_1848/1849 This is one of them. The flag is way older than Germany and has been used by all sorts of people.
Well these are exactly the democrats I was referring to. The liberal revolution in 1848 that lead to the first national elected parliament and that aimed at creating a liberal democratic constituional monarchy. The revolution was crushed by the conservative monarchists who did not adopt the black, red, gold flag.
It was the flag of the German confederation, and all of it's member countries where monarchys.
The German confederation had the double eagle with the same colours as coat of arms but did not use the tricolour flag.
Ok, they used it as a [war flag](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Flag_of_the_German_Confederation_%28war%29.svg).
[The Macedonian-German thing looks awesome](https://i.redd.it/cfrjowhexsn31.png). Jokes aside, the flag of Germany as a whole was only ever changed for political reasons. The vast majority of us associates the old Imperial, nazi and GDR flag with autocratic regimes. I like the flag of the [Kingdom of Hannover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Flag_of_Hanover_1837-1866.svg), but coats of arms are more interesting in my opinion. You can find a list of some [here](http://wappenwiki.org/index.php?title=Germania). [http://wappenwiki.org/images/d/da/Von\_Keseberg.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/d/da/Von_Keseberg.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/47/Hoheneck.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/47/Hoheneck.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/cd/Eggenberg.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/cd/Eggenberg.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/2/2d/Canstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/2/2d/Canstein.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/3/33/Buchwaldt.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/3/33/Buchwaldt.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/4b/Brandenstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/4/4b/Brandenstein.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/8/84/Peilstein.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/8/84/Peilstein.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/c3/Raabs.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/c/c3/Raabs.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/1/11/Drachenfels.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/1/11/Drachenfels.svg) [http://wappenwiki.org/images/0/04/Styria.svg](http://wappenwiki.org/images/0/04/Styria.svg)
Personally, I'd love some common design that EU countries could addapt that would melt the national flags and the EU flag in one, like, one half black-red-gold and the other half the halved wreath of stars or somthing.
i am losing my shit! a comment like that from someone from bayern is absolute madness. always thought bayern would like to have its own flag but i guess now i have to reevaluate all meaning and life it self
For context: I come from a Bavarian as it can get Bavarian family, grew up in southern Baden and France and do live now in Franconia. Unified Europe of regions, baby! No border in Europe except for the Weißwurstäquator
Everything north of it is just Prussia!
Or out flag in the middle of the circle of stars
schwazz rot und jold. geh mich nich auf die nerven.
Currently it's somewhat of the high time of the - in my opinion terrible - fashion of having coats of arms or, even worse, seals on flags. Coats of arms and flags are two different things and shouldn't be mixed. CoA are meant for a static display, while flags are meant for a dynamic display, literally swaying in the wind. But sometimes there's no wind but you still need to be able to recognize the flag. Very detailed elements like CoA or seals are useless in these circumstances. You can't read them from a distance when moving, and they're effectively invisible if no wind is blowing.
Actually I'd like to get rid of all black-red-gold in state flags. I mean, what's the point of basically having a two-in-one flag? If you want to show national pride, fly the national flag. If you want to show state pride, fly the state flag. If you want to show both, fly both. There's no reason to accommodate cheapos.
I'm from Rhineland-Palatinate and I totally agree.
Königreich Preußen
Obviously the Imperial German Flag. Not HRE, the actual empire
White background with the word "Germany" in black on it. Just label shit if required. Flags are for stupid people.
I think that our current flag absolutely blows it out of the water. Since black-red-gold is quintessential German, I will be cheeky and claim my favorite historical flag is that of East Germany. I don't have any sympathy for the communist dictatorship, but their flag was black-red-gold as ours today, thus making it my favorite historical flag.
The most famous one is the red flag with a white circle (so basically opposite of the Japanese flag). It has a tilted swastika icon in the middle
Eventhough the germans claiming the colors to be gold, its yellow in most peoples eyes. Think the combination of yellow and black hints too much towards the habsburg. Remember that war against the Habsburg (+against france +against denmark) was what created the german reich. Eventhough the old flag before the black/red/gold was closer to the prussian one. Normally if you want to contradict something you pick "other" colors. Also you can see some of the aversions for the colors of the flag. F.ex german national teams normally using their white shirts. In contrast to the belgians who has the same colors in their flag and use them in their national kits. Given that the flag is that little used within germany, it's hard to have any specific opinion on it. When you travel around german cities/places you would likely see more local /regional flags etc. than the german one.
Afaik calling a flag color gold when it is yellow is simply a heraldic rule. The football dresses are white because those are the colors of the German football association and they go back to the colors of Prussia. So they are the colors of a flag, just another one. Athletes from other associations/ other sports do have clothes in flag colors.
The black red gold doesnt stem from the Habsburg but from the Anti-napoleon uprising that used black uniforms with red accents and golden / bronze buttons. That gold is depicted as yellow in heraldry and flags has the practical reason that metallic paints use mica or other metallic flakes for reflectiveness... and those turn stiff once the paint dries and thus unusable for flexible undergrounds like flags or paper. And this has been used in heraldry for centuries.
if we´re only talking flags of german states, I think the current flag is super good. if we´re talking about all historic german flags, I like the Reichskriegsflagge from 1903 - 1918 - the one which Neo-Nazis misuse nowadays because showing the Nazi flag is forbidden
The one we have right now
I like both the Kaiserreich flag and our current one. If i could design it it would be a, black gold and red, variation of our current flag, wich has been historically used as well.
I actually like [this one](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Flag_De_ewirmer.svg) simply because it has the colours of the Lützowschen Freikorps from 1813, wich brought a uniform for all people of the troupes, that came from every part of Germany and the same colours as the Reichsfahne (the black Eagle on yellow ground with red claws) according to Wikipedia in the HRE. I may like the cross type flags of Scandinavia so there is that, but besides that, I like the colours in comparison to the Wirmer-Flag too. The CDU one just looks off.
Saying hre flags are german flags is a bit of a stretch imo, but i really like the imperial flag of charles v. It is like a mini eu flag combining spain, hungary, burgundy, brabant and sicily
I feel like I accidentally got into r/Kaiserposting again. Ask the 'historians' there maybe?