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 Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
The national flag of Austria is a triband in the following order: red, white, and red.
The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting respectively the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor in the Italian city-states of Central Italy and Northern Italy during the Middle Ages.
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.
The following is a list of historical military colours, standards and guidons in different countries that do not exist today.
The eagle is used in heraldry as a charge, as a supporter, and as a crest. Heraldic eagles can be found throughout world history like in the Achaemenid Empire or in the present Republic of Indonesia. The European post-classical symbolism of the heraldic eagle is connected with the Roman Empire on one hand, and with Saint John the Evangelist on the other.
The double-headed eagle is an iconographic symbol originating in the Bronze Age. A heraldic charge, it is used with the concept of an empire. Most modern uses of the emblem are directly or indirectly associated with its use by the late Byzantine Empire, originally a dynastic emblem of the Palaiologoi. It was adopted during the Late Medieval to Early Modern period in the Holy Roman Empire, Albania and in Orthodox principalities, representing an augmentation of the (single-headed) eagle or Aquila associated with the Roman Empire. In a few places, among them the Holy Roman Empire and Russia, the motif was further augmented to create the less prominent triple-headed eagle.
The coat of arms of Bern, along with the associated flag and heraldic colours, are used both by the Swiss city of Bern and by the canton of the same name. They were also used by the former district of Bern until its abolition in 2009.
The Kingdom of Italy, also called Imperial Italy, was one of the constituent kingdoms of the Holy Roman Empire, along with the kingdoms of Germany, Bohemia, and Burgundy. It originally comprised large parts of northern and central Italy. Its original capital was Pavia until the 11th century.
The Duchy of Austria was a medieval principality of the Holy Roman Empire, established in 1156 by the Privilegium Minus, when the Margraviate of Austria (Ostarrîchi) was detached from Bavaria and elevated to a duchy in its own right. After the ruling dukes of the House of Babenberg became extinct in male line, there was as much as three decades of rivalry on inheritance and rulership, until the German king Rudolf I took over the dominion as the first monarch of the Habsburg dynasty in 1276. Thereafter, Austria became the patrimony and ancestral homeland of the dynasty and the nucleus of the Habsburg monarchy. In 1453, the archducal title of the Austrian rulers, invented by Duke Rudolf IV in the forged Privilegium Maius of 1359, was officially acknowledged by the Habsburg emperor Frederick III.
The state of Prussia developed from the State of the Teutonic Order. The original flag of the Teutonic Knights had been a black cross on a white flag. Emperor Frederick II in 1229 granted them the right to use the black Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire. This "Prussian Eagle" remained the coats of arms of the successive Prussian states until 1947.
The flag of Milan consists of a red cross on a white field. Whilst similar to the Cross of Saint George, the flag instead symbolises the connection between Saint Ambrose and the city of Milan.
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.
Throughout most of the history of Poland, the banner of Poland was one of the main symbols of the Polish State, normally reserved for use by the head of state. Although its design changed with time, it was generally a heraldic banner, i.e., one based directly on the national coat of arms: a crowned White Eagle on a red field. The banner should not be confused with the flag of Poland, a white and red horizontal bicolor, officially adopted in 1919.
The Reichsadler is the heraldic eagle, derived from the Roman eagle standard, used by the Holy Roman Emperors and in modern coats of arms of Germany, including those of the Second German Empire (1871–1918), the Weimar Republic (1919–1933) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945).
For most of its history, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire did not use heraldry in the Western European sense of permanent motifs transmitted through hereditary right. Various large aristocratic families employed certain symbols to identify themselves; the use of the cross, and of icons of Christ, the Theotokos and various saints is also attested on seals of officials, but these were often personal rather than family emblems. Likewise, various emblems were used in official occasions and for military purposes, such as banners or shields displaying various motifs such as the cross or the labarum. Despite the abundance of pre-heraldic symbols in Byzantine society from the 10th century, only through contact with the Crusaders in the 12th century, and particularly following the Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) and the establishment of Frankish principalities on Byzantine soil from 1204 onwards, did heraldic uses penetrate in Byzantium. A native Byzantine heraldry began to appear in the middle and lower rungs of aristocratic families in the 14th century, coinciding with the decline of imperial authority and with the fragmentation of political power under the late Palaiologan emperors. However, it never achieved the breadth of adoption, or the systematization, of its Western analogues.
German heraldry is the tradition and style of heraldic achievements in Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, including national and civic arms, noble and burgher arms, ecclesiastical heraldry, heraldic displays and heraldic descriptions. German heraldic style is one of the four major broad traditions within European heraldry and stands in contrast to Gallo-British, Latin and Eastern heraldry, and strongly influenced the styles and customs of heraldry in the Nordic countries, which developed comparatively late. Together, German and Nordic heraldry are often referred to as German-Nordic heraldry.
A number of cross symbols were developed for the purpose of the emerging system of heraldry, which appeared in Western Europe in about 1200. This tradition is partly in the use of the Christian cross an emblem from the 11th century, and increasingly during the age of the Crusades. Many cross variants were developed in the classical tradition of heraldry during the late medieval and early modern periods. Heraldic crosses are inherited in modern iconographic traditions and are used in numerous national flags.
Since the days of Rudolph of Habsburg and the 1283 Treaty of Rheinfelden, the combination of red-white-red was widely considered to be the Austrian colours used by the ruling Habsburg dynasty. Black and yellow later became the colours used by the Imperial House of Habsburg when they held the title of Holy Roman Emperor, as they did from the mid-15th century all the way to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, and were themselves derived from the banner of the empire. The original form of this flag featured a yellow background with a black double-headed eagle. However, this proved to be a complicated design, and was hard to reproduce. In the 18th century, a simpler form with black and yellow bars started to appear in the lands ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. With the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, this flag was approved for use as a civil flag. The black–yellow flag was used in a way similar to a modern national flag by the Austrian Habsburg monarchy within the Holy Roman Empire, by the later Austrian Empire, and by the Austrian part of Austria-Hungary, and was sometimes informally used for the entire empire, up until 1918.
During its existence, Austria-Hungary did not have a common flag – a "national flag" could not exist since the Dual Monarchy consisted of two sovereign states. However, the black-gold flag of the ruling Habsburg Dynasty was sometimes used as a de facto national flag and a common civil ensign was introduced in 1869 for civilian vessels. Until 1918, the k.u.k. War Fleet continued to carry the Austrian ensign it had used since 1786 and the regiments of the k.u.k. Army carried the double-eagle banners they had used before 1867, as they had a long history in many cases. New ensigns created in 1915 were not implemented due to the ongoing war. At state functions, the Austrian black-yellow and the Hungarian red-white-green tricolor were used.
