Flag of Germany
Flag of Germany
Germany
did not become a unified nation until 1871. Before that time, it had been
a confederacy (1815–67) and, prior to 1806, a federal empire composed of
separate principalities. In 1949, the country was divided in two, to form
the communist-led German Democratic Republic (G.D.R.), or East Germany
and the Federal Republic of Germany (F.R.G.), known as West Germany, the
former German capital, Berlin, also being split by the Berlin Wall. The
collapse of communist rule in East Germany in 1989, however, led to the
reunification of the two states on 3 October, 1990 as the Federal
Republic of Germany.
The official name of the German flag is the Bundesflagge ('Federal
Flag'), although most Germans call it the Deutschlandfahne ('German
Flag'). The use of its black, red and gold colors, which had been the
colors of the uniforms of the German troops during the Napoleonic Wars,
date from the time of the first attempts at unification in 1848. When the
Weimar Republic was created in 1919, the 1 horizontal tricolor that forms
today's flag of Germany was re-adopted, but was replaced in 1933 by the
Hakenkreuz (literally, the 'Hooked Cross'), the Nazi Party's swastika
flag. Although both East and West Germany reverted to the tricolor in
1949, the G.D.R. added its coat of arms to it. Since reunification, the
German national flag has been the unadorned tricolor.
