Germany flag is the national flag of Germany, a country in central Europe. The flag is a horizontal tricolor of three equal stripes—black on top, red in the middle, and gold at the bottom.
Germany’s flag has civil and state forms. The civil flag is flown by individual citizens and in international settings. It has three plain stripes. The state flag, used by Germany’s government, has the German coat of arms at its center. The coat of arms features a black eagle with a red beak and red claws on a gold shield. An eagle had been a symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, which ruled much of Germany and some nearby regions from the A.D. 900’s to 1806.
In the early 1800’s, the area that is now Germany consisted of many small states. Nationalists seeking to unite these states used black, red, and gold flags. The colors became symbolic of German unity, but they were not initially used in a national flag. The German Empire that formed in 1871 adopted a horizontal tricolor of black, white, and red.
At the end of World War I (1914-1918), Germany formed a republic that adopted a black, red, and gold flag. But in 1933, the Nazi Party gained power. The party’s flag, with its swastika emblem, became the national flag in 1935.
After World War II (1939-1945), Germany became a divided country. Both democratic West Germany and Communist East Germany reinstated the black, red, and gold striped flag. In 1959, East Germany added its national coat of arms to the center of the flag. That coat of arms presented a hammer and a compass inside a wreath of grain as symbols of the working classes. In 1989, many East Germans pushed for democratic reform and unification with West Germany. Some demonstrators cut the East German coat of arms out of their flags.
In 1990, East and West Germany formed a unified democracy under the flag used today.
