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Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (Germany)

Imperial banner Black-Red-Gold

Last modified: 2006-10-07 by jarig bakker
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Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold

The flag that I'm sending to you is the pennant of the so called "Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold", a socialdemocratic based paramilitary fighting alliance founded in the Weimar Republic on February 24 1924 in Magdeburg.
The flag I'm sending to you was used by the "Ortsgruppe Stockheim" (Location Group Stockheim), but I actually don't know which Stockheim is meant. Other local groups of the Reichsbanner supposably have used similar flags, only with other Ortsgruppe-signs on it.
The Reichsbanner joined together with the labour union ADGB and other organisations in the "Eiserne Front" (Iron Front) and was disorganised in 1933 after the nazis came to power.
Pictures of the real Flag (actually, a reprint of it) could be found at the homepage of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, where an exhibition about the history of the Eiserne Front at the Paul-Löbe-Haus was reported (but not anymore).
Another review about that exhibition and a better fotograph can be found at kellinghusen-info.de, an Internet-Newspaper.
The graphic was made by me and can freely be used on your site, any other FOTW-Mirrors and other sites, I'd feel proud if you put it in the FOTW database, if you'd like I'll also send you the original Photoshop file.
Oliver Wolters, 30 Jun 2004

The description "socialdemocratic based" could be, unless familiar with the circumstances, misleading as suggesting that this organization was solely a socialdemocratic matter. This is the case insofar it were social democrats who initiated the founding and the movement was dominated by them (around 90%), but from the beginning members of the liberal DDP (Deutsche Demokratische Partei) and the conservative Zentrum partei were part of membership and leadership. Politically the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold can be classed as center-left, for it were mainly right-wing social democrats and left-wing liberals and conservatives who joined this organization.
Oliver Wolters was referring to these social democratic predominances, as he wrote to me.
Martin Karner, 6 Jul 2004