Dresden city arms

Dresden; Free State of Saxony
Blazon
	"In the split shield on the right, on a golden background, it shows a black Meißner lion with red tongues and armored arms rising to the right, and two black Landsberg stakes on a golden background on the left."
City colors
	Black gold

The Dresden city coat of arms is an emblem of the Saxon state capital Dresden .

Blazon

The coat of arms shows in the split shield [heraldic] on the right on a golden background a black Meißner lion with red tongues and armored arms rising to the right , on the left two black Landsberg stakes on a golden background .

Foundation of the coat of arms

The Meissen lion shown heraldically on the right was the symbol of power of the Wettins who ruled the Margraviate of Meissen . It stands for the city's dependence on the margraves, who have resided in Dresden since the second half of the 15th century. The Landsberg Piles also refer to an ancestral home of the Wettins. The Mark Landsberg consisted of an unspecified area between the lower Saale and the Elbe . Dresden was not in this area, but the Landsberg stakes developed into the family coat of arms of the Wettins.

history

Council seal stamp from 1309

The oldest form of the Dresden city coat of arms is handed down as a seal on a certificate of homage from July 22, 1309. At that time the council called it “our stat insygele”, today it is on display in the Dresden City Museum. It has the shape of a triangular shield and already shows the Meissen lion and the Landsberg piles; both rulership coats of arms were apparently joined together towards the end of the 13th century. Initially, a comparable coat of arms was used in Leipzig . Chemnitz and Dresden adopted this coat of arms, with Dresden coloring the originally blue Landsberg stakes black to distinguish them from Leipzig.

From the 17th century onwards, Dresden expanded very much, so that many seals were required. In the middle of the 17th century, the council seal showed the lion and the stakes on a small round shield. Towards the end of the 19th century, heraldists subjected the Saxon coat of arms to a scientific test. On August 17, 1880, the city introduced similar stamps and seals , the old ones lost their validity. Adolf Matthias Hildebrandt designed the new city arms, the main change was the position of the lion.

The coat of arms consisted of two representations: as a coat of arms with a helmet in the Renaissance style and as a shield coat of arms in the Rococo style . The city council approved the use of both forms. The helmet gradually fell off after the end of the First World War . During the GDR era , the coat of arms was also used for the Dresden district , but not on an official basis. The current spade form of the coat of arms was introduced in 1960, in 1986 the city council decided on a new form of coat of arms. After 1989 the coat of arms, which was already valid at the time of the Weimar Republic, was used again. On September 8, 1994, the city council approved the coat of arms in its current form.

In addition to the coat of arms, Dresden has an official seal according to its main statute, which has been in force since September 4, 2014 (§ 2 national emblem). It shows the coat of arms of the state capital with the inscription "State Capital Dresden". From 2006 to 2015 the city also had an official signet. It consisted of two squares. In the upper square the mirrored writing “Dresden.” Can be seen, in the lower a simplified city coat of arms.

Illustrations

Official seal of the city tax office from 1900
Coat of arms with helmet (Renaissance style) around 1920
Dresden coat of arms in the large courtroom of the Imperial Court building , Leipzig
Dresden's coat of arms used during the GDR era

Use in public spaces
Coat of arms on the wooden ceiling of a gallery in the Leubnitz-Neuostra church
Coat of arms on the Weichbildstein on Blasewitzer Strasse
Coat of arms on the facade of the Gewandhaus , inner old town
School portal with city arms and figurative design by Otto Pilz
City arms on the facade of the Sachsenbad
Coat of arms on a residential building on the main street
Coat of arms on the top of a flagpole on Neustädter Markt at the entrance to the main street
Coat of arms on a manhole cover on the Tännichtweg in Hellerau
City coat of arms on a pillar of the Augustus Bridge
City coat of arms on a railing of the Augustus Bridge
City arms under the Augustus Bridge

marine

Several ships of the Imperial Navy carried the official city coat of arms as the ship's coat of arms, including the small cruiser SMS Dresden from 1907 and its successor of the same name, launched ten years later .

literature

Stadtlexikon Dresden A-Z . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1995, ISBN 3-364-00300-9 .
Eckhart Leisering: Coat of arms of the independent cities and districts in the Free State of Saxony . mdv, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle / Saale 2000, ISBN 3-89812-069-4 .

Web links

Commons : Dresden city arms - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ Main statute of the state capital Dresden. (PDF; 384 kB) State capital Dresden, February 7, 2019, accessed on December 21, 2019 .

[1] Main statute of the state capital Dresden. (PDF; 384 kB) State capital Dresden, February 7, 2019, accessed on December 21, 2019 .