Flags and coats of arms of the federal states of the German Empire

Imperial eagle of the German Empire

This list shows the flags and coats of arms of the federal states of the German Empire from 1871 to 1918.

Affiliation

The German Empire comprised 25 federal states ( federal members ) - including the three republican Hanseatic cities of Hamburg , Bremen and Lübeck - as well as the realm of Alsace-Lorraine .

list


location	coat of arms	flag	State	Remarks
			Kingdom of Prussia	The national colors of Prussia are already included in the Hohenzollern family coat of arms . The heraldic animal of Prussia is the black eagle (see Order of the Black Eagle ).
			Kingdom of Bavaria	White and blue were the colors of the Counts von Bogen , whose inheritance was made by the Wittelsbach family in 1242.
			Kingdom of Württemberg	The deer sticks have been the symbol of the House of Württemberg since the Middle Ages . The national colors black-red replaced the colors black-red-gold because after the wars of liberation the associated revolutionary symbolism was frowned upon.
			Kingdom of Saxony	The coat of arms is derived from the Anhalt line of the Ascanians , whose coat of arms was divided nine times by black and gold.
			Grand Duchy of Baden	The Baden coat of arms was the personal family coat of arms of the margraves of Baden .
			Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin	The Mecklenburg princes initially had a griffin in their seal, but since 1219 the bull's head. The gold in the flag comes from the color of Mecklenburg's main coat of arms. The blue stands for the rule of Rostock , which was added in 1323, and the red for the county of Schwerin, which was regained in 1358 .
			Grand Duchy of Hesse	A lion striated in silver and red was originally used by the Ludovingians . They were also landgraves in Thuringia.
			Grand Duchy of Oldenburg	The state colors correspond to the colors of the Grand Dukes of Oldenburg from the House of Holstein-Gottorp, in which blue-gold ( Holstein ) and silver-red ( Schleswig-Gottorf ) were combined.
			Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach	The colors of the Wettins were originally the imperial colors black and gold. When Friedrich August I (Saxony) returned from captivity at the end of the Wars of Liberation in 1815 , he was greeted with green and white garlands. In recognition of this, he decided to add the colors green to the national colors.
			Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz	The flag combines the colors of different lines of the House of Mecklenburg .
			Duchy of Brunswick	The national colors correspond to the colors of the ruling family of the Guelphs in the line of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel .
			Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen	When the Saxon King Friedrich August I returned from captivity, he was greeted with green and white garlands.
			Duchy of Anhalt	The princes of Anhalt combined the state colors of Saxony (silver-green) and Brandenburg (red-silver) in their claim coat of arms.
			Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha	It is not known whether the colors in the color sequence green-silver were chosen to distinguish them from Sachsen-Altenburg (silver-green).
			Duchy of Saxony-Altenburg	When the Saxon King Friedrich August I returned from captivity, he was greeted with green and white garlands.
			Principality of Lippe	The coat of arms of the imperial princes of Lippe shows a red and yellow rose on a silver background (see Lippe rose ).
			Principality of Waldeck	The national colors correspond to the colors of the German tricolor of the revolution year 1848 , which was banned in other German countries.
			Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt	The national colors correspond to the colors of the Thuringian Counts of Schwarzburg from the Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt line.
			Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen	The national colors correspond to the colors of the Thuringian Counts of Schwarzburg from the Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (Arnstadt) line.
			Principality of Reuss younger line	The colors black-red-gold are from the coat of arms of the medieval bailiffs of Weida (the Counts Reuss), who wore a golden lion with red reinforcement and a red crown on a black shield.
			Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe	The national colors are probably derived from the coat of arms of the imperial princes of Schaumburg-Lippe, which shows a red rose on a silver background. Possibly the blue stands for the inherited Schaumburger Land .
			Principality of Reuss older line	The princes Reuss were given their lands as imperial immediate areas by the emperor for administration. Therefore, the bailiffs of Weida were allowed to wear the imperial colors in their coats of arms, which are derived from the imperial shield with the black eagle on a golden background.
			Free City of Hamburg	The white castle in a red shield is a representation of the medieval Cathedral of Mary.
			Free City of Lübeck	The double-headed eagle is the imperial eagle as a symbol of imperial freedom . Red and white are the colors of the Hanseatic League .
			Free City of Bremen	The key is the attribute of Saint Peter . Red and white are the colors of the Hanseatic League .
			Reichsland Alsace-Lorraine	The Reichsland had the imperial eagle and the imperial colors black-white-red . They characterize Alsace-Lorraine as an empire, as a centrally administered part of the empire that is subordinate to the emperor. To distinguish it, the flag shows the crowned coat of arms of Alsace-Lorraine in the black stripe on the leech .