Origins
Though the medieval Holy Roman Empire knew no national colours, a black eagle, referring to the Roman Aquila standard, displayed on a gold shield with red trim had been used on the semi-official Reichsadler of the Emperor since the 12th century. The Imperial colours Black and Gold were adopted by many Imperial cities to underline their immediacy; when the last Habsburg emperor Francis II abdicated from the throne in 1806, he adopted the colours as the flag of his Austrian Empire.
The colours Black, Red and Gold were used e.g. 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 armed, beaked and langued Imperial eagle was used from the 14th century onwards, as depicted in the Codex Manesse about 1304. According to Friedrich Engels (The Peasant War in Germany, 1850), the insurgents of the 1525 German Peasants' War marched against the Princes under a Black, Red an Gold banner.
Read more about this topic: National Colours Of Germany
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