Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
So just as I was wondering what video I should make next,
one of you wonderful people came up with an interesting question:
What is the origin of the German flag?
It’s actually not all that old,
because for a very long time there was no such thing as a single German nation state:
instead, there was a loose confederation of independent states
that together made up the Holy Roman Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire did use a banner that included the colours black, red and gold;
but for the origin of the modern tricolour we have to go forward in time
to the end of the Empire.
This was the German Campaign of the Napoleonic Wars,
and it lasted from 1813 to 1815.
One of the forces taking part was the Lützow Free Corps.
Their uniform was black with gold-coloured buttons and red facing.
The troops were mostly students fighting against French occupation.
As a volunteer force, they were required to supply their own uniforms.
Black clothes and brass buttons were cheap and plentiful, so that’s what they used.
But they had their own interpretation of these colours:
From the blackness of servitude
through bloody battles
to the golden light of freedom.
Now, exactly what happened after the war is a bit of a mystery,
but we do know that some of the veterans went on to form the “Urburschenschaft”,
a kind of student fraternity, the first of its kind in Germany.
And it had a banner that was red, black, red with a golden oak branch.
But in 1819, such organisations were banned.
One of the members of the now-disbanded Urburschenschaft was August Daniel von Binzer,
and he wrote a poem, which is the earliest mention
of the colours black, red and gold in that order.
So those three colours came to symbolize the struggle for freedom,
but in those days it was conventional to list the colours from the bottom up,
which is why in paintings of this period the tricolour appears upside-down.
In 1848 the inevitable happened: the March Revolution.
In the event it turned out to be very short-lived, but never mind.
The revolutionaries used the colours of the Urburschenschaft,
but this time in the modern order with black at the top.
But even though that revolution failed,
the anti-monarchists continued to use the colours black, red and gold.
In 1919, when Germany had finally become a republic,
this was the obvious choice for a new national flag.
When the Nazis came to power, they banned it,
but it was restored after the war,
although East Germany had to differentiate it
by adding the symbol of a hammer and a pair of compasses.
And that, basically, is the history of the German flag:
a symbol of rebellion and freedom.
Like most flags, really.
If you have something for my notice board, please send it to this address.
Please note that I can only accept letters and postcards:
so please don’t send me parcels or packages,
or anything that must be signed for.