TheBlutfahne (pronounced[ˈbluːtfaːnə]), orBlood Flag, is or was aNazi Partyswastika flag that was carried during the attempted coup d'étatBeer Hall Putsch inMunich, Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of theSA men who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects of theNazi Party. It was used in ceremonies in which new flags for party organisations were "consecrated" by the Blood Flag when touched by it.
The flag was that of the 5th SASturm, which was carried in the march towards theFeldherrnhalle. When the Munich police fired on the National Socialists (Nazis), the flagbearer Heinrich Trambauer was hit and dropped the flag.Andreas Bauriedl, an SA man marching alongside the flag, was killed and fell onto it, staining the flag with his blood.[1]
There were two stories about what happened to the flag in the aftermath of the Putsch: one was that the wounded Trambauer took the flag to a friend where he removed it from its staff before leaving with it hidden inside his jacket and later giving it to a man named Karl Eggers for safekeeping. The other story was that the flag was confiscated by the Munich authorities and was later returned to the Nazis via Eggers. In the mid-1930s, after a myth emerged that Bauriedl had been carrying the flag, an investigation by Nazi archivists concluded that Trambauer was the standard-bearer and that the flag had been concealed by an SA man, not taken by the police, though they had confiscated other flags which they later returned.[2] Regardless of which story was the correct one, afterAdolf Hitler was released fromLandsberg Prison (having served nine months of a five-year prison sentence for his part in the putsch), Eggers gave the flag to him.
After Hitler received the flag, he had it fitted to a new staff andfinial; just below the finial was a silver dedication sleeve which bore the names of the 16 dead participants of the putsch.[3] Bauriedl was one of the 16 honorees. In addition, the flag was no longer attached to the staff by its original sewn-in sleeve, but by a red-white-black intertwined cord which ran through the sleeve instead.[4] In 1926, at the secondNazi Party congress at Weimar, Hitler ceremonially bestowed the flag onJoseph Berchtold, then head of theSS.[1] The flag was thereafter treated as a sacred object by the Nazi Party and carried by SS–SturmbannführerJakob Grimminger at various Nazi Party ceremonies. One of the most visible uses of the flag was when Hitler, at the Party's annualNuremberg rallies, touched other Nazi banners with theBlutfahne, thereby "sanctifying" them.[5] This was done in a special ceremony called the "flag consecration" (Fahnenweihe).[1]
When not in use, theBlutfahne was kept at the headquarters of the Nazi Party, theBrown House in Munich with an SS guard of honour. The flag had a small tear in it, believed to have been caused during the Putsch, that went unrepaired for a number of years.
TheBlutfahne was last seen in public at theVolkssturm induction ceremony on 18 October 1944[citation needed] (not, as frequently reported,[6] atGauleiterAdolf Wagner's funeral six months previously). This ceremony was conducted byHeinrich Himmler and attended byWilhelm Keitel,Heinz Guderian,Hans Lammers,Martin Bormann,Karl Fiehler,Wilhelm Schepmann, andErwin Kraus.[citation needed]
After this last public display, theBlutfahne vanished. Its current whereabouts are unknown, but it is generally assumed to have been destroyed amidst theAllied bombing of Munich in 1945.[7]
