Flag and Coat of Arms
After the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were altered to reflect the political changes. The republican tricolour is based on the flag that the Paulskirche Constitution of 1849 introduced, which was decided upon by the German National Assembly in Frankfurt upon Main, at the peak of the German civic movement that demanded parliamentary participation and unification of the German states.
The achievements and signs of this movement were mostly done away with after its downfall and the political reaction. Only the tiny German Principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont upheld the tradition and continued to use the German colours called Schwarz-Rot-Gold in German (English: Black-Red-Gold).
These signs had remained symbols of the Paulskirche movement and Weimar Germany wanted to express its view of being also originated in that political movement between 1848 and 1852. However, anti-republicans opposed this flag. While the first German Confederal Navy (Reichsflotte) (1848–1852) had proudly used a naval ensign based on Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the Weimar republic navy, or Reichsmarine (1918–1935) insisted on using the pre-1918 colours of the previous Kaiserliche Marine (1871–1918), which were Black-White-Red, as did the German merchant marine.
The republican coat of arms took up the idea of the German crest established by the Paulskirche movement, using the same charge animal, an eagle, in the same colours (black, red and gold), but modernising its form, including a reduction of the heads from two to one. Friedrich Ebert initially declared the official German coat of arms to be a design by Emil Doepler (shown in the infobox above) as of 11 November 1919, following a decision of the German government.
In 1928, however, the Reichswappen (Reich coat of arms) designed by Tobias Schwab (1887–1967) in 1926 ] replaced it as the official emblem for the German Olympic team. The Reichswehr adopted the new Reichswappen in 1927.
Doepler's design then became the Reichsschild (Reich's escutcheon) with restricted use such as pennant for government vehicles. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) adopted all three signs of Weimar Republic, Reichswappen, Reichsschild and Reichsflagge as Bundeswappen, Bundesschild and Bundesflagge.
Read more about this topic: Weimar Republic
Famous quotes containing the words flag, coat and/or arms:
“By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We want some coat woven of elastic steel, stout as the first, and limber as the second. We want a ship in these billows we inhabit. An angular, dogmatic house would be rent to chips and splinters, in this storm of many elements. No, it must be tight, and fit to the form of man, to live at all; as a shell is the architecture of a house founded on the sea.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I can understand that if you have sold arms to the ayatollah why you might not be quite as sensitive to the need to get assault weapons off our streets.”
—Charles S. Robb (b. 1939)