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Red gold smultron5/5/2023 ![]() The colors symbolized national unity and civic freedom. The French tricolor flag was then countered by a German tricolor one. These colors were adopted by the forces forming in Germany in the early 19th century, which called for a republic and national unity.Īt the Hambach Festival in 1832, a huge festival of the democracy movement, yellow, red and black striped flags were waved. In 1815, at the end of the liberation wars, student fraternities from all over Germany gathered in Jena to form a nationally united "Urburschenschaft" (Original Brotherhood) - largely initiated by Turnvater Jahn. They chose a vertically striped red-black-red flag with a golden branch in the middle, based on the colors of the Lützow uniforms. Other colors were hard to come by at the time. To make them look as similar as possible, it was easiest to dye them black. The black was born out of necessity - the volunteers brought their own uniforms. The Lützow Free Corps also made a name for itself through its appearance: black uniforms, red insignia and gold buttons. ![]() You shall plunge steel into the enemy's heart, Hell aus dem Norden bricht der Freiheit Licht.ĭu sollst den Stahl in Feindes Herzen tauchen,ĭein deutsches Land mit deinem Blute rein!īright from the North shines the light of freedom. While Jahn remains controversial for antisemitic statements, Körner's war poem is steeped in patriotic fervor, reflecting the anti-French spirit of his era: The corps owed its fame not least to notable members such as Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, who was nicknamed "Turnvater" (father of gymnastics) because of his sports achievements, the Romantic Age composer Carl Maria von Weber and the writer Theodor Körner, who dedicated his popular poem Lützow's Wild Hunt to the regiment. The orientation of the black-red-gold colors on the flags still varied Image: Geminfreiĭuring the war, Prussian propaganda highlighted one fighting unit in particular: the volunteer corps of Major Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow, which then became known as the "Lützower Jäger" (Lützow hunters). Revolution 1848: Here, barricade fights on March 18 and 19 in Berlin. The color combination only became a political symbol in the aftermath of the War of the Sixth Coalition (also known as the "Wars of Liberation") beginning in 1813 against the French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte, who had occupied large parts of Germany. Although the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation showed a black eagle with red legs against a gold background, those were not the official colors of the empire. The roots of the black-red-gold triad were long thought to have been in the Middle Ages. Nowadays, the flag represents a tradition of freedom and democracy, but it was a long and winding road to get there. In fact, the color combination already had at least 200 years of history behind it in Germany. Following a long reflection process, the authors of Germany's new constitution, the Basic Law, added the following sentence into Article 22 in 1949: "The federal flag is black-red-gold."
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