German symbols. Symbols of Germany
Perhaps for many Russians, the coat of arms of Germany is associated with not too pleasant, if not tragic, memories of the Second World War, since its main image is an eagle, one of the most formidable raptors on the planet. Fortunately, the bird depicted on the state symbol of Germany has significantly changed outwardly. And now it does not look menacing, but solemnly and powerfully.
The main details of the coat of arms
On the main official symbol of Germany there is only an eagle, its image is placed on a golden shield. The bird itself with outstretched wings is painted black, and its beak, tongue, paws and claws are scarlet. According to heraldic principles, the eagle's head is turned to the right.
Sometimes you can find just an image of a black eagle with scarlet details. In the absence of a shield, the bird can no longer be called the coat of arms of Germany, the name "federal eagle" is allowed. The regulation, approved in January 1950, contained a description of the federal coat of arms and the federal eagle. And the drawing was approved only two years later (by the way, it is a copy of the coat of arms of Germany, approved in 1928).
Flipping through the pages of history
The eagle is a symbol of the sun, courage and vitality. This is the meaning given to this bird in mythology. different peoples and countries. Even during the reign of Charlemagne, the coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire appears, on which there is a well-known combination of colors and symbols: a golden background; black Eagle.
True, in the 15th century, the symbol of the emperor, the eagle, had a second head and a single crown placed on top. It was this image of the bird that was preserved on the coat of arms of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and in 1848 it turned out to be on the state symbol. German Reich, in contrast to the various kingdoms and duchies, where there could be lions, bears, crowns, fortresses and keys.
The eagle took its permanent place on the symbols of Germany both during the unified German Reich (until 1918) and the Weimar Republic, which replaced the Reich and existed until 1933. For the purpose of intimidation, the Nazis added a swastika and an oak crown, this symbol looked too gloomy.
The modern coat of arms of Germany is an exact copy of the German symbol, put into effect in 1928. And the drawing was invented even earlier, in 1926, by Tobias Schwab. True, experts say that the tail of the modern German eagle is shorter. The proud and formidable bird settled for a long time on the main state symbol of Germany and is not going to share such an honorable place with anyone.
The coat of arms of Germany is the official symbol of the country. He, like any other sign, has its own history and features. Speaking of such a majestic and powerful country as Germany, it is impossible not to talk about its coat of arms and flag.
History of occurrence
The coat of arms of Germany, the photo of which you can see above, presents a black eagle, depicted on a golden background, with red paws. This bird is She also stands for vitality and courage. Even during the reign of Charlemagne, this symbol was recognized as a coat of arms. However, it did not stay as such for long, since from the 15th century the image was replaced by a double-headed eagle with one crown.
A little later, this coat of arms began to belong to Austria-Hungary. And only in 1848, he began to refer to Germany. Then it became the coat of arms of the Reich. So he became entrenched as a national symbol. The Nazis, by the way, also used the image of this mighty bird, only in its claws there was also a swastika. Since then, little has changed. The crown, which was the symbol of the monarchy, was removed. Post-war Germany also adopted the eagle as its state symbol.
Varieties
The coat of arms of Germany is not an ordinary eagle. Its image is made according to a special sketch, the author of which was Tobias Schwab. The modern coat of arms of Germany was created back in 1926. But he received official status in 1950 - after the approval of the corresponding order by Theodor Heuss, who was then president federal republic. Its description was exactly the same as the text that talked about the coat of arms. It should be noted that the same coat of arms of Germany is depicted on the flags, state seals, postage stamps and coins.
History of the German flag
Everyone knows what it looks like. These are three consecutive stripes - black, scarlet and gold (listing colors from top to bottom). It was accepted on May 8, 1949. The decision was taken by the Parliamentary Council, which met in Bonn. The next day, for the first time in the last 16 years, a black-red-gold flag was raised over the building where all state-important meetings were held. After quite a long time, in 1996, it was decided that the federal tricolor could also be used vertically. Thus, on the left was in the middle - scarlet, and on the right - gold.
The meaning of the tricolor
The flag and coat of arms of Germany have their own interpretation. And if some people have heard something about the meaning of the German eagle, then few people know about the tricolor. Black represents the dark past of the German Empire. After all, Germany has not always been such a successful and prosperous country. Red denotes the internal political position of the state (which reigned at that time). And, finally, the golden color is a symbol of the rich future of the country. By the way, even before the approval of just such a flag, one could observe the love of the Germans for this combination. Back in the days when they went liberation wars against Napoleon, the German army was dressed in a black uniform, complete with red sleeves and brass buttons that looked like gold.
Another interesting moment dates from the day when the tercentenary of the Reformation was celebrated. It was at Wartburg Castle. Participated in the ceremony great amount of the students who stood for Yi, their banner was made up of thin red stripes along the edges and one large, black one, which was visible in the center. In the very middle there was an oak branch framed with a golden fringe. This flag is considered to be the predecessor of the modern German tricolor.
Half a century has passed since the end of the Second World War, but until now, the two letters SS (more precisely, of course, SS), for the majority, are synonymous with horror and terror. Thanks to the mass production of Hollywood and the Soviet film factories trying to keep up with it, almost all of us are familiar with the uniforms of the SS men and their death-head emblem. But the actual history of the SS is much more complex and multifaceted. In it one can find heroism and cruelty, nobility and meanness, selflessness and intrigue, deep scientific interests and a passionate craving for the ancient knowledge of distant ancestors.
The head of the SS Himmler, who sincerely believed that the Saxon king Henry I "Birdcatcher" was spiritually reincarnated in him - the founder of the First Reich, elected in 919 the king of all Germans. In one of his speeches in 1943 he said:
"Our order will enter the future as a union of an elite that has united the German people and all of Europe around itself. It will give the world leaders of industry, Agriculture as well as political and spiritual leaders. We will always obey the law of elitism, choosing the superior and discarding the inferior. If we stop following this fundamental rule, then we will condemn ourselves to and disappear from the face of the earth like any other human organization.
His dreams, as you know, were not destined to come true for completely different reasons. WITH young years Himmler showed an increased interest in the "ancient heritage of our ancestors." Associated with the Thule Society, he was fascinated by the pagan culture of the Germans and dreamed of its revival - of the time when it would replace the "stinking Christianity." In the intellectual depths of the SS there was a development of a new "moral" based on pagan ideas.
Himmler considered himself the founder of a new pagan order, which was "destined to change the course of history", carry out "purification of the rubbish accumulated over the millennia" and return humanity to "the path prepared by Providence." In connection with such grandiose plans for a "return", it is not surprising that the ancient one was widely used on the SS order. On the uniforms of the SS men, they stood out, testifying to the elitism and camaraderie that prevails in the organization. From 1939 they went to war singing a hymn that included the following line: "We are all ready for battle, we are inspired by runes and a dead head."
As conceived by the Reichsführer SS, the runes were to play a special role in the symbols of the SS: on his personal initiative, within the framework of the Ahnenerbe program - the "Society for the Study and Dissemination cultural heritage ancestors" - the Institute of Runic Writing was established. Until 1940, all recruits of the SS order underwent mandatory instruction regarding runic symbolism. By 1945, 14 basic runic symbols were used in the SS. The word "rune" means "secret script." Runes are the basis alphabets carved on stone, metal and bone, and spread mainly in pre-Christian Northern Europe among the ancient Germanic tribes.
"... The great gods - Odin, Ve and Willy carved a man from ash, and a woman from willow. The eldest of the children of Bor, Odin, breathed soul into people and gave life. To bestow them with new knowledge, Odin went to Utgard, the Land of Evil ", to the World Tree. There he pulled out an eye and brought it to, but this seemed not enough to the Guardians of the Tree. Then he gave his life - he decided to die in order to resurrect. For nine days he hung on a branch pierced by a spear. Each of the eight nights of Initiation opened him new secrets of being. On the ninth morning, Odin saw runes-letters inscribed on a stone. His mother's father, the giant Belthorn, taught him to carve and color runes, and the World Tree became known from then on - Yggdrasil ... "
So tells about the acquisition of runes by the ancient Germans "Snorrieva Edda" (1222-1225), perhaps the only complete review of the heroic epic of the ancient Germans, based on legends, divination, spells, sayings, cult and rituals of the Germanic tribes. In the Edda, Odin was revered as the god of war and the patron of the dead heroes of Valhalla. He was also considered a necromancer.
The famous Roman historian Tacitus in his book "Germany" (98 BC) described in detail how the Germans were engaged in predicting the future with the help of runes.
Each rune had a name and a magical meaning that went beyond purely linguistic boundaries. The inscription and composition changed over time and acquired magical significance in Teutonic astrology. At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries. the runes were remembered by various "folkische" (folk) groups spread in Northern Europe. Among them was the Thule Society, which played a significant role in the early days of the Nazi movement.
Hakenkreutz
SWASTIKA - the Sanskrit name of the sign depicting a hook cross (among the ancient Greeks, this sign, which became known to them from the peoples of Asia Minor, was called "tetraskele" - "four-legged", "spider"). This sign was associated with the cult of the Sun among many peoples and is found already in the Upper Paleolithic era and even more often in the Neolithic era, primarily in Asia (according to other sources, the oldest image of the swastika was found in Transylvania, it dates back to the late stone age; the swastika was also found in the ruins of the legendary Troy, this is the Bronze Age). Already from the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. it is included in the symbolism, where it means secret doctrine Buddha. The swastika is played on ancient coins India and Iran (before our era penetrates from there to); in Central America it is also known among the peoples as a sign indicating the cycle of the Sun. In Europe, the distribution of this sign dates back to a relatively late time - to the Bronze and Iron Ages. In the era of the migration of peoples, he penetrates through the Finno-Ugric tribes to the north of Europe, to Scandinavia and the Baltic, and becomes one of the supreme Scandinavian god Odin (Wotan in German mythology), who suppressed and absorbed the previous solar (solar) cults. Thus, the swastika, as one of the varieties of the image of the solar circle, was practically found in all parts of the world, as the solar sign served as an indication of the direction of rotation of the Sun (from left to right) and was also used as a sign of well-being, “turning away from the left side”.
It is precisely because of this that the ancient Greeks, who learned about this sign from the peoples of Asia Minor, changed the turn of their “spider” to the left and at the same time changed its meaning, turning it into a sign of evil, sunset, death, since for them it was “alien” . Since the Middle Ages, the swastika has been completely forgotten and only occasionally met as a purely ornamental motif without any meaning and significance.
Only at the very end of the 19th century, probably on the basis of the erroneous and hasty conclusion of some German archaeologists and ethnographers that the swastika sign can be an indicator for determining the Aryan peoples, since it is supposedly found only among them, in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century they began to use the swastika as anti-Semitic sign (for the first time in 1910), although later, at the end of the 20s, the works of English and Danish archaeologists were published, who discovered the swastika not only in the territories inhabited by Semitic peoples (in Mesopotamia and Palestine), but also directly on the Hebrew sarcophagi.
For the first time as a political sign-symbol, the swastika was used on March 10-13, 1920 on the helmets of the militants of the so-called “Erhard Brigade”, which formed the core of the “Volunteer Corps” - a monarchist paramilitary organization led by Generals Ludendorff, Seeckt and Lutzow, who carried out the Kapp putsch - counter-revolutionary the coup that planted the landowner V. Kapp as “premier” in Berlin. Although Bauer's Social Democratic government fled ignominiously, the Kapp Putsch was liquidated in five days by the 100,000-strong German Army created under the leadership of the Communist Party of Germany. The authority of the militaristic circles was then severely undermined, and the sign of the swastika from that time began to mean a sign of right-wing extremism. Since 1923, on the eve of Hitler's "beer putsch" in Munich, the swastika has become the official emblem of the Nazi fascist party, and since September 1935 - the main state emblem of Nazi Germany, included in its coat of arms and flag, as well as in the emblem of the Wehrmacht - an eagle holding in its claws wreath with swastika.
Under the definition of "Nazi" symbols, only a swastika standing on an edge at 45 °, with the ends directed to the right, can fit. It was this sign that was on the state banner of National Socialist Germany from 1933 to 1945, as well as on the emblems of the civil and military services of this country. It is also desirable to call it not "swastika", but Hakenkreuz, as the Nazis themselves did. The most accurate reference books consistently distinguish between the Hakenkreuz ("Nazi swastika") and the traditional swastikas in Asia and America, which stand on the surface at an angle of 90°.
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Symbols of the Third Reich
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Half a century has passed since the end of the Second World War, but until now, the two letters SS (more precisely, of course, SS), for the majority, are synonymous with horror and terror. Thanks to the mass production of Hollywood and the Soviet film factories trying to keep up with it, almost all of us are familiar with the black uniforms of the SS men and their death-head emblem. But the actual history of the SS is much...
The flag of Germany is a tricolor with black, red and gold horizontal stripes. For the first time, these three colors became a symbol of the national liberation struggle of the German people in 1813. This is how the uniform of the student freedom corps, which opposed Napoleon's army, was painted. Later, these colors were transferred to the banners of student and democratic organizations and became a symbol of the 1848 revolution. However, German Empire, created in 1871, like its predecessor, the North German Confederation, had a black-white-red flag. The 1918 revolution chose the black-red-gold flag as its symbol. In 1949, the black-red-gold flag of the 1919 model was chosen as the state and national flag of the Federal Republic of Germany. Black symbolizes the dark years of reaction, red - the blood of patriots shed in the struggle for freedom, gold - the sun of freedom.
The modern state emblem of Germany depicts a black single-headed eagle with red paws, tongue and beak on a golden shield. This coat of arms is very ancient, serving as an emblem of the power of the German kings. The first image of an eagle on a shield can be seen on the silver coins of King Frederick Barbarossa (end of the 12th century). From the 14th century, first the paws, and then the beak and tongue of the eagle became red.
But from the beginning of the 15th century, the single-headed eagle was replaced by a double-headed one - a symbol of the Habsburg dynasty ruling until 1871 (although the monarchy was elective, during the election of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire there was a "family law" when the next chosen one had to be related to the previous ones).
The single-headed eagle was revived as the coat of arms of Germany in 1871, but the Prussian small coat of arms was depicted on its chest. The coat of arms was crowned with the imperial crown, and next to it were two mythological forest giants with the coat of arms of Prussia and Brandenburg. The Weimar Republic in 1919 freed the German eagle from the monarchist and Prussian emblems. In 1927, the image of the eagle was even more stylized, he took on a fairly peaceful appearance. It was in this form that the eagle was adopted as the coat of arms of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1950, which became a symbol of the continuity of the democratic order of the Weimar Republic.
The anthem's melody was written by Franz Joseph Haydn. The basis for it was the old Austrian royal anthem, which was first performed on February 12, 1797. Words by August Heinrich Hoffmann van Falersleben (1841). The anthem was adopted in 1922 by the first president of the German Republic, Friedrich Ebert.
(English)
Unity and right and freedom for the German fatherland;
Let us all pursue this purpose brotherly, with heart and hand.
Unity and right and freedom are the pledge of happiness.
Flourish in this blessing's glory, flourish, German fatherland.