Flag of Nazi Germany

Last updated
Flag of Nazi Germany (1935–1945)
Flag of Germany (1935-1945).svg
Use National flag and ensign FIAV 110110.svg FIAV historical.svg
Proportion3:5
Adopted15 September 1935
Relinquished23 May 1945
DesignA horizontal flag featuring a red background with a black swastika on a white disk
Designed byAdolf Hitler
Flag of Nazi Germany (1933–1935)
Flag of Germany (1933-1935).svg
Use National flag and ensign FIAV 110110.svg FIAV historical.svg
Proportion3:5
Adopted14 March 1933
Relinquished15 September 1935
DesignA horizontal tricolour of black, white, and red

The flag of Nazi Germany, officially called the Reich and National Flag (German : Reichs- und Nationalflagge [1] ), featured a red background with a black swastika on a white disk. This flag came into use initially as the banner of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party, after its foundation in 1920. [2] Shortly after the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor in 1933, this flag was adopted as mandatory for use, while the national one was the black-white-red triband of the German Empire. [3] One year after death of President Paul von Hindenburg, this arrangement ended. The Nazis banned usage of the imperial tricolour, labelling it as "reactionary", [4] and made their party flag the national flag of Germany as a part of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, [1] which it remained until the end of World War II and the fall of the Third Reich.

Contents

History

Origins

The design of the Nazi flag was introduced by Hitler as the party flag in mid-1920, roughly a year before (29 July 1921) he became his political party's leader: a flag with a red background, a white disk and a black swastika in the middle. The flag was designed by Hitler himself, as described in his book Mein Kampf , in which he explained the process by which the Nazi flag design was created, after having presented several proposals: [2]

"I myself, meanwhile, after innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of the swastika. [2]

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)

The Nazi Party was not the only party to use the swastika in Germany. After World War I, a number of far-right nationalist movements adopted the swastika. As a symbol, it became associated with the idea of a racially "pure" state. [2]

Soon after Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, the black-red-gold tricolour flag of the Weimar Republic was banned; a ruling on 12 March established two legal flags: the reintroduced black-white-red imperial tricolour national flag and the flag of the Nazi Party. [3] [5] Actually the new flags were not introduced officially until 14 March 1933, although this usage may have formally started earlier. [6] On 29 April 1933, Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick decreed that all merchant ships had to fly the black-white-red ensign at the stern and the flag of the Nazi Party on the signal stay or starboard signal yard. [7]

Flag of Germany (1933-1935).svg
First national flag of Nazi Germany (1933–1935), corresponding the flag of the North German Confederation (1867–1871) and the German Empire (1871–1919).
Flag of the NSDAP (1920-1945).svg
The flag of the Nazi Party (1920–1945). On this flag, the swastika is centred, making it slightly different from the national flag used after 1935, on which the swastika is off-centred.

Initially, the official specification for the Nazi flag placed the white disk, containing the swastika, in the middle of the flag. However, on 20 December 1933 a decree was issued authorising an off-centred version of the swastika flag for use at sea. [8] This was purely a practical decision intended to make the emblem more visible (because when a flag is flying briskly, the outer half appears shorter than the half next to the staff and the centred white circle would appear to be more towards the fly). Moreover, although the Nazi flag on land had the swastika on both sides "right-facing," the Nazi flag at sea displayed the swastika on the reverse side as a "through and through" or mirror image, so the flag had a "right-facing" swastika on the front (or obverse) side and a "left-facing" swastika on the back (or reverse) side. It is not absolutely known when the reverse of the swastika flag at sea was changed, but it can be assumed that this change was made as part of the regulations of 20 December 1933. The reasons were the same in each case: to improve the appearance ("optical proportions") of the flag when used at sea, and improve the visibility of the important design elements (by eliminating potential reverse-shadowing of the dark swastika on the white circle, especially in bright sun light). [5] [9]

Illustration depicting anti-Nazi demonstrators attacking Bremen docked in New York Harbor, United States on 26 July 1935 SS Bremen incident illustration.jpg
Illustration depicting anti-Nazi demonstrators attacking Bremen docked in New York Harbor, United States on 26 July 1935

On 15 September 1935, one year after the death of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, the Nazi flag became the national flag and ensign of Germany. [1] One reason for the change may have been the "Bremen incident" of 26 July 1935, in which a group of demonstrators in New York City boarded the ocean liner SS Bremen, tore the Nazi Party flag from the jackstaff, and tossed it into the Hudson River. When the German ambassador protested, US officials responded that the swastika was not the German national flag (unlike the black-white-red tricolour) and therefore the perpetrators could not be criminally prosecuted and punished due to the absence of elements of crime, as the German national flag had not been harmed, but only a political party symbol. [10] The new flag law, which had been issued as a part of the Nuremberg Laws, [1] was announced at the annual party rally in Nuremberg in 1935, [11] where Hermann Göring claimed the old black-white-red flag, while honoured, was the symbol of a bygone era and under threat of being used by "reactionaries". [4] Until 15 September 1935, the off-centred disk version of the swastika flag was confined to the civil ensign on German-registered merchant ships as well as the jack of the warships, but on 15 September 1935, merchant flag and national flag were unified and were henceforth identical except for their reverse side. There was therefore some confusion after the war about this arrangement. Allied soldiers deemed the centred disk versions of the swastika flag to be "national flags", so a lot of publications later maintained, mistakenly, that the centred disk version was used until the end of World War II. In fact, the only centred disk versions of the flag used after 1935 were the party flags of the Nazi Party. [5]

A flag from Nazi Germany found near the south bank of the Rapido River about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) west of Monte Cassino by J. McQuorkindale on the night of 17-18 February 1944. The swastika appears to be left-facing in this image. Flag (AM 695001-1).jpg
A flag from Nazi Germany found near the south bank of the Rapido River about 4,000 feet (1,200 meters) west of Monte Cassino by J. McQuorkindale on the night of 17–18 February 1944. The swastika appears to be left-facing in this image.

Symbolism

The Nazi flag takes its colours from the imperial tricolour, with Hitler writing that he "was always for keeping the old colours", because he saw them as his "most sacred possession" as a soldier, and also because they suited his personal taste. [12] Hitler added new symbolism to the colours, stating that "[t]he red expressed the social thought underlying the movement. White the national thought", and that the black swastika was an emblem of the "Aryan race" and "the ideal of creative work which is in itself and always will be anti-Semitic." [12]

Since 1945

At the end of World War II, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the first law enacted by the Allied Control Council on 20 September 1945 abolished all symbols and repealed all relevant laws of the Third Reich. [13] The possession of swastika flags has been forbidden in several countries since then, with the importation or display of them forbidden particularly in Germany.

Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' Rally (35780274914) crop.jpg
Prominent alt-right activists were instrumental in organising the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States in August 2017. Here, rally participants carry Confederate battle flags, Gadsden flags, a Nazi flag and a flag depicting Mjölnir.
Neonazi 2.4.2005 Munchen.jpg
Participants in a nationalist march in Munich (2005) resorted to flying the Reichsflagge and Reichsdienstflagge of 1933–1935 (de) (outlawed by the Nazi regime in 1935) due to § 86a.

Today, the Nazi flag remains in common use by neo-Nazi supporters and sympathisers, outside Germany, while within the country, neo-Nazis use the Fatherland Flag from the German Empire instead, due to ban on the Nazi flag use. However, the imperial flag did not originally have any racist or anti-Semitic meaning. [14]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi Party</span> Far-right political party active in Germany (1920–1945)

The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor, the German Workers' Party, existed from 1919 to 1920. The Nazi Party emerged from the extremist German nationalist, racist and populist Freikorps paramilitary culture, which fought against communist uprisings in post–World War I Germany. The party was created to draw workers away from communism and into völkisch nationalism. Initially, Nazi political strategy focused on anti–big business, anti-bourgeois, and anti-capitalist rhetoric; it was later downplayed to gain the support of business leaders. By the 1930s, the party's main focus shifted to antisemitic and anti-Marxist themes. The party had little popular support until the Great Depression, when worsening living standards and widespread unemployment drove Germans into political extremism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of Germany</span>

The national flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red, and gold. The flag was first sighted in 1848 in the German Confederation. The flag was also used by the German Empire from 1848 to 1849. It was officially adopted as the national flag of the German Reich from 1919 to 1933, and has been in use since its reintroduction in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilhelm Frick</span> German Nazi Party politician (1877–1946)

Wilhelm Frick was a convicted war criminal and prominent German politician of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) who served as Minister of the Interior in Adolf Hitler's cabinet from 1933 to 1943 and as the last governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coat of arms of Germany</span>

The coat of arms of Germany displays a black eagle with a red beak, a red tongue and red feet on a golden field, which is blazoned: Or, an eagle displayed sable beaked langued and membered gules. This is the Bundesadler, formerly known as Reichsadler. It is one of the oldest coats of arms in the world, and today the oldest national symbol used in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historical colours, standards and guidons</span>

The following is a list of historical military colours, standards and guidons in different countries that do not exist today.

<i>Blutfahne</i> Lost Nazi Party flag relic

The Blutfahne, or Blood Flag, is or was a Nazi Party swastika flag that was carried during the attempted coup d'état Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the SA men who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects of the Nazi Party. It was used in ceremonies in which new flags for party organisations were consecrated by the Blood Flag when touched by it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi symbolism</span> Symbols used by Nazis and neo-Nazis

The 20th-century German Nazi Party made extensive use of graphic symbols, especially the swastika, notably in the form of the swastika flag, which became the co-national flag of Nazi Germany in 1933, and the sole national flag in 1935. A very similar flag had represented the Party beginning in 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nazi Party Rally Grounds</span> Area in Nuremberg, Germany

The Nazi party rally grounds covered about 11 square kilometres (1,100 ha) in the southeast of Nuremberg, Germany. Six Nazi party rallies were held there between 1933 and 1938.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reichskriegsflagge</span> War flags and war ensigns used by the German armed forces

The term Reichskriegsflagge refers to several war flags and war ensigns used by the German armed forces in history. A total of eight different designs were used in 1848–1849 and between 1867–1871 and 1945.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany)</span> Government department (1933–1945)

The Ministry of Aviation was a government department during the period of Nazi Germany (1933–45). It is also the original name of the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus building on the Wilhelmstrasse in central Berlin, Germany, which today houses the German Finance Ministry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National colours of Germany</span> National symbol of Germany

The national colours of the Federal Republic of Germany are officially black, red, and gold, defined with the adoption of the West German flag as a tricolour with these colours in 1949. Germany was divided into West Germany and East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and both Germanies retained the black, red, and gold colors on their respective flags. After German reunification in 1990, the united Germany retained the West German flag, thus retaining black, red, and gold as Germany's colors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Flag Desecration Law (Germany)</span> German law

The Anti-Flag Desecration Law of 1932 banned flag desecration by "insulting or maliciously and with intent belittling" the German Reich, its states, their constitution, colors, or flags, or the Wehrmacht. The law was not a Nazi law; it was an amendment to the German criminal code, signed into law as an emergency decree in the Weimar Republic on 19 December 1932 by President Paul von Hindenburg and the cabinet of Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher. A revised form of the law is still in effect today.

The German Strafgesetzbuch in section § 86a outlaws use of symbols of "unconstitutional organizations" and terrorism outside the contexts of "art or science, research or teaching". The law does not name the individual symbols to be outlawed, and there is no official exhaustive list. However, the law has primarily been used to supress fascist, Nazi, communist, Islamic extremist and Russian militarist symbols. The law, adopted during the Cold War, most notably affected the Communist Party of Germany, which was banned as unconstitutional in 1956; the Socialist Reich Party, which was banned in 1952; and several small far-right parties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reichstag (Nazi Germany)</span> Legislative body of Nazi Germany

The Reichstag, officially the Greater German Reichstag after 1938, was the national parliament of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Following the Nazi seizure of power and the enactment of the Enabling Act of 1933, it functioned purely as a rubber stamp for the actions of Adolf Hitler's dictatorship — always by unanimous consent — and as a forum to listen to Hitler's speeches. In this purely ceremonial role, the Reichstag convened only 20 times, the last on 26 April 1942. The President of the Reichstag throughout this period was Hermann Göring.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of East Germany</span> National flag from 1949 to 1990

Like the flags of the Weimar Republic, West Germany, and present-day Germany, the flag of East Germany, the German Democratic Republic, showed the colours black, red and gold. The coat of arms, which, from 1959, was a hammer, compass and wreath of wheat, was located in the middle of the colour red.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law of Nazi Germany</span> Nazi Germanys legal and justicial system 1933 - 1945

From 1933 to 1945, the Nazi regime ruled Germany and, at times, controlled almost all of Europe. During this time, Nazi Germany shifted from the post-World War I society which characterized the Weimar Republic and introduced an ideology of "biological racism" into the country's legal and justicial systems. The shift from the traditional legal system to the Nazis' ideological mission enabled all of the subsequent acts of the Hitler regime to be performed legally. For this to succeed, the normative judicial system needed to be reworked; judges, lawyers and other civil servants acclimatized themselves to the new Nazi laws and personnel. As of 2021, a few laws from the Nazi era still remain codified in German law.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flag of the German Empire</span>

The black-white-red flag, also known as the flag of the German Empire, the Imperial Flag or the Realm Flag, is a combination between the flag of Prussia and the flag of the Hanseatic League. Starting as the national flag of the North German Confederation, it would go on to be commonly used officially and unofficially under the nation-state of the German Reich, which existed from 1871 to 1945. After 1918, it was used as a political symbol by various organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wirmer Flag</span> German flag proposed by Josef Wirmer

The Wirmer Flag, also known commercially as the flag of German Resistance 20 July or the Stauffenberg flag, is a design by Josef Wirmer. Wirmer was a resistance fighter against the Nazi Regime and part of the 20 July plot. According to his idea, the flag was to become the new flag of Germany after the successful assassination attempt against Hitler and the transfer of power to the conspirators. First discussed by the Parlamentarischer Rat in 1948/49 as the federal flag, the design served in modified form as the party flag of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) from 1953 until around 1970 and as the model for the Free Democratic Party's (FDP) party symbol. The flag then disappeared from public perception.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arno Rauscher</span> German politician

Arno Rauscher was a German politician and lawyer. Between 1924 and 1934 Rauscher was mayor of Potsdam. He was also a member of the Landtag of Prussia between 1930 and 1933.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Reichsflaggengesetz (Eines der drei "Nürnberger Gesetze")" [Reich Flag Law (One of the three "Nuremberg Laws")]. documentArchiv.de (in German). 15 September 1935. Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The History of the Swastika". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  3. 1 2 von Hindenburg, Paul (12 March 1933). "Erlaß des Reichspräsidenten über die vorläufige Regelung der Flaggenhissung" [Decree of the President for the provisional regulation of raising flags]. documentArchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 17 July 2010.
  4. 1 2 Statement by Hermann Göring, quoted in the Völkischer Beobachter (17 September 1935) (in German)
  5. 1 2 3 Fornax. "The German Swastika Flag 1933–1945". Historical flags of our ancestors. Retrieved 17 July 2010.
  6. "Third Reich 1933-1945 (Germany) Flags used 11 March 1933 - 15 September 1935".
  7. Frick, Wilhelm (29 April 1933). "Erlaß über das Setzen der Hakenkreuzflagge auf Kauffahrteischiffen" [Decree on setting the swastika flag on merchant ships]. documentArchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  8. von Hindenburg, Paul (20 December 1933). "Verordnung über die vorläufige Regelung der Flaggenführung auf Kauffahrteischiffen" [Ordinance on the provisional regulation of flag flying on merchant ships]. documentArchiv.de (in German). Retrieved 7 November 2024.
  9. "Centred vs. Offset Disc and Swastika 1933–1945 (Germany)".
  10. Brian Leigh Davis: Flags & standards of the Third Reich, Macdonald & Jane's, London 1975, ISBN   0-356-04879-9
  11. GERMANY: Little Man, Big Doings, Time , 23 September 1935
  12. 1 2 Mein Kampf at Project Gutenberg
  13. Allied Control Council (30 August 1945). "Law N° 1 from the Control Council for Germany: Repealing of Nazi Laws". European Navigator. Archived from the original on 4 Jun 2012. Retrieved 23 December 2007.
  14. "Imperial German Flag". ADL. Archived from the original on Dec 8, 2021.