Hey geograp...
Oh, is this on?
Yes, it is.
Hey geograpeeps! Welcome back to Flag Friday.
So, a little disclaimer, I'm gonna start using Flag Friday as kind of like a platform
to address the mistake I made in the country episodes.
Okay?
So in the Germany episode, I misspelled Wirtschaftswunder
and technically it's not completely illegal to own Nazi memorabilia in Germany.
I believe it's illegal to sell it or produce and print Mein Kampf
but it's not illegal to like own it? I'm not sure, you Germans have a lot of weird laws.
Also I believe Beethoven was actually born in a German city not Belgian
but there was somebody who is Belgian on his family.
I don't-- it's confusing.
I think there are a few more things but those were like the biggest ones.
We're here to cover the German flag.
Now, this is gonna be a little hard
because there is a lot of backstory and it's gonna be really confusing
and I might even probably get a few things wrong with this,
but I'm gonna try my best, all right?
So, without further ado:
♫ [Flag Friday intro music] ♫
Ah, Germany...
Don't make them get all Wirtschaftswunder on you
or else you'll end up Vergangenheitsbewältigung.
So anyway, the flag.
The flag is a horizontal tricolor of black, red and gold.
Remember it's gold, not yellow.
And that's where the animation is gonna have to stop
because technically there isn't an official symbolic interpretation of the colors of the German flag,
and a lot of people will disagree on where exactly the colors are derived from.
Here's what we do know.
Sometimes the colors are refered to as the Weimar Republic colors,
named after the Weimar Republic which took over the country after WWI
and was first adopted as the national flag in 1919.
However, that wasn't the first time the flag appeared in German history.
The first time it appeared was actually in the 19th century during the 1948 revolutions
or the March revolutions, in which Pan-Germanism was just starting to develop in its early stages
as the Holy Roman Empire was dissolving and all that Napoleon stuff was going on.
It was kinda like an on-and-off used flag until the German Empire came
and use the black-white-red configuration.
Some people say the black and white colors were derived from the Teutonic Order,
in which they used black crosses on white fields to identify themselves.
Whereas the Holy Roman Empire used a white cross on a red field,
so they kind of felt compelled to kind of like mesh those three colors together.
But how did the gold come into play?
Here are some of the most prominent theories:
Back in the day, most of what is Germany today lied in the Holy Roman Empire,
which funny enough had nothing to do with Romans,
and the flag for the Empire was a yellow banner with a black eagle sporting a red beak and talons.
Okay fair enough.
However some people say that it's also inspired from the uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps,
a militaristic group of volunteers who fought against Napolean in the 1800s,
as they wore black uniforms with red trims and gold buttons.
However it also said that in 1919,
the three colors were attributed to three main political parties:
the Democratic, the Centralist and the Republican parties of Germany.
However many vexillologists might say that
in the long run, the red might be derived from the Hanseatic Legue
which is like a commercial confederation on the north shores of Germany
and other north and Baltic Sea states in the 14th century.
Whereas the black and gold are most likely probably attributed to the Austrian Empire,
as the Austrians were kind of seen as like Germans back then.
I don't know you guys decide what story you like.
Yeah whatever, anyway, this flag was actually the flag of both East and West Germany for about 10 years
until East Germany was like:
'hmm... we got to, kind of, set ourselves apart and distinguish ourselves from West Germany.'
So they put an emblem in their flag and then they finally reunited in the 90's.
Speaking of which, that brings us to the coat of arms.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
'Oh it looks just like the Holy Roman Empire flag.'
Yeah, good eye, good eye that's what kind of derived from.
BUT, there's a lot of backstory behind that too.
The symbol of the eagle goes way back, like Roman times way back.
The Aquila or the eagle was a prominent image used in various Romans symbols.
After a while the Byzantines adopted it,
but it was like a double-headed eagle at the time.
Then in the 13th century with the Holy Roman Empire,
Frederich the second granted the imperial eagle on a golden shield to his state.
Of course, over the years variations of these images evolved over time.
Of course Nazi Germany kind of screwed things up.
But essentially the imperial eagle stayed throughout the ages.
Except in East Germany when they became their own state.
For about 35 years, they used the hammer and compass on a circular emblem
emblazoned by sheaves of wheat on each side, with the German tricolor banner below.
Fun side note: East Germany almost used a black-red-white configuration flag,
and West Germany almost considered using a Nordic cross pattern.
Wouldn't that be kind of interesting of Germany actually ended up with this flag?
Well, that was a boatload of information that I am trying really hard right now
to pretend like I completely understand myself
but deep down inside I'm actually secretly very blank.
This has been Flag Friday, you've just been flagged.
Stay cool, stay tuned.