.svg) | |
| Use | National flag andensign  |
|---|---|
| Proportion | 3:5 |
| Adopted | 15 September 1935 |
| Relinquished | 23 May 1945 |
| Design | A horizontal flag featuring a red background with a black swastika on a white disk |
| Designed by | Adolf Hitler |
| Flag of Nazi Germany (1933–1935) | |
.svg) | |
| Use | National flag andensign |
| Proportion | 3:5 |
| Adopted | 14 March 1933 |
| Relinquished | 15 September 1935 |
| Design | A horizontal tricolour of black, white, and red |
Theflag of Nazi Germany, officially called theReich and National Flag (German:Reichs- und Nationalflagge[1]), featured a red background with a blackswastika on a white disk. This flag came into use initially as the banner of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), commonly known as theNazi Party, after its foundation in 1920.[2] Shortly after the appointment ofAdolf Hitler asChancellor in 1933, this flag was adopted as mandatory for use, while the national one was theblack-white-red triband of theGerman Empire.[3] One year after the death of PresidentPaul 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 theNuremberg Laws in 1935,[1] which it remained until theend of World War II and the fall of theThird Reich.
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 blackswastika in the middle. The flag was designed by Hitler himself, as described in his bookMein 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. AfterWorld 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 afterHitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, the black-red-gold tricolour flag of theWeimar Republic was banned; a ruling on 12 March established two legal flags: the reintroduced black-white-red imperial tricolournational flag and the flag of the Nazi Party.[3][5] Despite this, 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 MinisterWilhelm Frick decreed that all merchant ships had to fly the black-white-redensign at thestern and the flag of the Nazi Party on the signalstay orstarboard signalyard.[7]
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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]
On 15 September 1935, one year after the death of Reich PresidentPaul 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 SSBremen, tore the Nazi Party flag from thejackstaff, and tossed it into theHudson 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 theNuremberg Laws,[1] was announced at the annual party rally inNuremberg in 1935,[11] whereHermann 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 offset version of the flag was confined to thecivil ensign on German-registered merchant ships as well as thejack 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 ofWorld War II. In fact, the only centred disk versions of the flag used after 1935 were the party flags of the Nazi Party.[5]
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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]
At the end ofWorld War II, after the defeat ofNazi Germany,the first law enacted by theAllied Control Council on 20 September 1945 abolished all symbols and repealed all relevant laws of the Third Reich.[13] The possession, importation or display of swastika flags has beenforbidden in several countries since then, particularly in Germany.
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Today, the Nazi swastika flag remains in common use byneo-Nazi supporters and sympathisers outside Germany, whilst in Germany neo-Nazis use the homeland's flag of 1933–1935 instead, since the above-mentioned ban on allNazi symbolism (e.g. the swastika, theSchutzstaffel's (SS) double sig rune, etc.) is still in effect within today's Germany according tosection § 86a of the GermanStrafgesetzbuch. However, the imperial black-white-red flag did not originally have any racist or anti-Semitic meaning, despite its brief use in Nazi Germany.[14]
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