Coat of arms of the city of Frankfurt am Main

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Frankfurt am Main
Hessen
Coat of arms of the city of Frankfurt am Main
Blazon

"The city coat of arms shows the white (silver), erect, gold-crowned and gold-armored eagle with spread wings and fangs, with a blue tongue and blue claws on the red field."

City colors
          White-red, since 1372
Basic data
Introduction: Around 1390
Legal basis: Main statute: 1952
Changes: 1926, 1936, 1952
Former municipalities
with their own coat of arms: 		List of coats of arms in the city of Frankfurt am Main

The coat of arms of the city of Frankfurt am Main has been a white eagle on a red background since the Middle Ages . According to the main statute of the city of Frankfurt am Main , the coat of arms shows "the white (silver), erect, gold-crowned and gold-armored eagle with spread wings and fangs, with a blue tongue and blue claws on the red field."

Derivation

The origins of the Frankfurt eagle lie in the imperial and royal coat of arms of the Holy Roman Empire . As a royal city and palatinate town , the developing citizenship of Frankfurt was solely subject to the king or emperor. Since the time of Frederick II the royal eagle was part of the seal of the Frankfurt imperial schools .

After Frankfurt had acquired this office from Emperor Karl IV. In 1372 and thus taken the most important step towards a free imperial city , the council took over the crowned royal eagle from the seals of the mayor. With the eagle, Frankfurt, like others, from now on was heraldically recognized as a free imperial city. Under the eagle banner, the Frankfurters marched into the battle of Eschborn in 1389 .

Presumably to distinguish it from black royal eagle on gold and perhaps in allusion to the name of the city was chosen in Frank furt existing also in the old Reichsbanner old Frankish colors and gave the Frankfurter Adler as a white plumage on a red ground.

A praise poem from the 16th century emphasizes the descent from the imperial eagle:

"... Almost such an eagle / in a red shield /
snow-white color / the Reich delivers to
the city of Frankfurt / crowned / who
rises his head high / according to Reichsadler's custom ..."

  • Battle of Eschborn

  • Emperor Heinrich VI. with coat of arms

development

Until the end of the Holy Roman Empire

The coat of arms is regularly documented in this form from 1400 onwards. From the early 15th century onwards, an early depiction, together with other coats of arms from a large-scale quaternion cycle, adorned the so-called upper council chamber, which later became the electoral room in the Frankfurt Römer . Even if the images themselves were whitewashed in the same century, the city council previously commissioned the glass painter Hans Fetter to document the image program consisting of 46 coats of arms in a book of coats of arms .

In this depiction, the Frankfurt eagle, apart from the golden semicircular wing bands, essentially corresponded to today's blazon. But the details of the tinging , crowning and other jewelry varied over the centuries to varying degrees and were not precisely regulated until the 20th century. On the Eschenheim tower , which was built in the first half of the 15th century , the eagle appears uncrowned, contrary to most representations. Siebmacher's coat of arms does not show him with wing bands, but with golden clover stems.

In addition to completely golden reinforcement and bezings, blue tongues and claws were also more common. Further depictions show his chest with an 'F' to clearly distinguish similar blazon coats of arms (e.g. Poland). The Frankfurt eagle with an 'F' on its chest was used for the first time in 1540 as a brand for the paper mill in Bonames .

  • Fettersches Wappenbuch, 1583

  • Siebmacher's book of arms with golden clover stalks on the wings.

  • Late Gothic heraldic jewel of the ehm. House Viole belonging to the town hall

  • Adler of the council chamber of the ehm. Frauenrode house in 1747.

19th century

Grand Duchy of Frankfurt

After the end of the old empire, the city belonged to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt as the department of Frankfurt . The Frankfurt eagle was surrounded by a princely coat for the first time and had to share the coat of arms with the Mainz wheel , the Fuldaer Kreuz and the Hanauer rafters until Frankfurt regained its independence as the Free City of Frankfurt in 1815 .

  • Coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt

Free City of Frankfurt

Just as the Free City of Frankfurt oriented itself in its constitution, the constitution supplementary act , to the old imperial city times, it also seamlessly followed the tradition in heraldry. In addition to the Frankfurt colors, the trade flag from 1832 also bore the coat of arms, in this case the eagle again had the initial on its chest, while elsewhere, for example on the club thaler, which was minted in 1865, it was omitted. More often, the eagle now also wore a wall crown to emphasize its own sovereignty, independence and urban self-image.

  • Coat of arms of the Free City of Frankfurt (1831)

  • Revers of the Frankfurt Vereinsthaler 1865

Prussian time

With the annexation of the city by Prussia at the end of the German War in 1866, the city lost its sovereignty . The coat of arms of the city-state has now become a municipal coat of arms. With the title reform of the Prussian royal title in 1873, the Frankfurt eagle in the bottom last field of the large divided shield also became part of the Prussian national coat of arms , here with gold reinforcement and red inscription. In the same way he represented the "Herrschaft Frankfurt" in the coat of arms of the province of Hessen-Nassau .

After the city lost its independence, people began to reflect on the inner pride of the prosperous trading city and its numerous families working with charitable foundations. The public space is symbolically filled with evidence of Frankfurt pride, public buildings financed and built by Frankfurt citizens such as the municipal opera house or the main building of the university consistently display the Frankfurt eagle above their entrances. The depiction of the Prussian eagle is avoided by the new subjects of the Prussian king. Instead, people in Frankfurt are now increasingly remembering their own role as an important imperial city and as the electoral and coronation site of the Roman-German emperors . Representations of the Frankfurt coat of arms therefore make more use of imperial insignia and symbols, for example on the Gutenberg memorial by Eduard Schmidt von der Launitz or on the Frankfurt Römer, during whose renovation and re-gothicisation the Frankfurters expressed their civic pride with an oversized Frankfurt eagle compared to the imperial symbols in the top of the stepped gable.

  • Coat of arms of Hessen-Nassau with Frankfurt eagle

  • Triangular gable of the Alte Oper (1880) with coat of arms

  • Frankofurtia with imperial sword and coat of arms

  • Draft for the redesign of the town hall, a simplified form was carried out with the Frankfurt eagle, which is no longer available today.

  • Plaque for the redesign of the town hall, with sign holders and imperial banners

Weimar Republic

Under Mayor Ludwig Landmann , the city of Frankfurt started a process of renewal. The city's creative activities encompassed almost all areas of life, from architecture to the design of individual objects. Today, this project is primarily associated with the town planning officer Ernst May and became famous worldwide as the New Frankfurt . In 1924, the graphic artist Hans Leistikow was appointed head of the "graphic office" , who held this office until 1930. Leistikow designed what is probably the first visual appearance of a city, including a new eagle signet in the style of the new objectivity with a focus on a balance of surfaces and proportions. The traditional heroic depiction of a mythical creature was consciously broken. This corresponded to the wish to lead an "un-Prussian" eagle as a former Free Imperial City .

Step by step, this appearance was implemented with the new eagle in all offices and was found from letterheads to school certificates and ID cards, with variants being deliberately intended for different applications. Individual city councilors tried to raise their profile with a criticism, even speaking disrespectfully of a “replacement animal”, as a result the appearance was revised again.

If the "Leistikow-Adler" was once considered a component of a modern corporate design, its meaning has changed and today it stands for the preservation of tradition and a sense of home. Applications include the plaque of honor of the city of Frankfurt am Main , the flag of the Institute for City History and as the coat of arms of the fire brigade sports club Frankfurt am Main.

  • City coat of arms and logo. Designed by Hans Leistikow in 1925

  • Variant as a seal of the city administration

1935 until today

Logo of the city of Frankfurt, 1985

When the NSDAP politician Friedrich Krebs became mayor in 1933, he had the “Leistikow eagle” removed from the printing blocks of all documents. In 1935, a design by the museum employee Adolf Gloyr was introduced Approved in 1936. After the Second World War, the coat of arms was confirmed again in the main statute of the city on June 5, 1952. Changes were not necessary because the coat of arms did not contain any National Socialist symbolism, but was based on the heraldic tradition of representation from the time of the Free City.

In 1985 the coat of arms found its way into the signet or logo of the city in a stylized form, as it is used to this day. and is supplemented by lettering in the Futura font , which is closely related to Frankfurt.

  • Coat of arms of the city of Frankfurt, designed by Adolf Gloyr, 1936

See also

List of coats of arms in the city of Frankfurt am Main - districts that have their own coats of arms

Sources and literature

  • German coat of arms - Federal Republic of Germany. Stadler, K., 1964–1971, Angelsachsen Verlag, 8 issues.
  • Adolf Feulner : The Frankfurt eagle. Illustrations on the history of the city arms up to the year 1866. Frankfurt 1935.
  • Walter Möller: The seals of the oldest Frankfurt mayors and other Reich officials. In: Quarterly papers of the historical association for the Grand Duchy of Hesse. 6, pp. 119-122 (1916).
  • Hermann Grotefend : The Frankfurt city arms in front of the judge's chair of the heraldry. In: Communications from the Association for History and Regional Studies in Frankfurt a. M. 7 (1885), pp. 253-275.
  • Konrad Schneider: The Frankfurt eagle. Coats of arms, seals and flags of the city of Frankfurt am Main and its districts. Henrich Editions, Frankfurt am Main 2012, ISBN 978-3921606858

Web links

Commons : Coat of arms of the city of Frankfurt am Main  - collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b § 7 para. 2 of the main statute of the city of Frankfurt accessed on Feb. 26, 2020
  2. ↑ From the imperial eagle to the "plucked sparrow". Changes of the Frankfurt heraldic animal ( Memento from August 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), Institute for City History
  3. ^ Konrad Schneider: The Frankfurt eagle. Coats of arms, seals and flags of the city of Frankfurt am Main and its districts. Frankfurt 2011, p. 9 f.
  4. ↑ cit. after Bernhard Reichel, in: Wolfgang Klötzer (ed.): Frankfurt-Archiv Volume 2 , F02004
  5. ^ Konrad Schneider: The Frankfurt eagle. Coats of arms, seals and flags of the city of Frankfurt am Main and its districts. Frankfurt 2011, p. 11
  6. ↑ Hilmar Hoffmann, Walter Schobert, Rudolf Worschech: Living Pictures of a City: Cinema and Film in Frankfurt am Main, p. 168
  7. ↑ http://www.kultur-frankfurt.de/portal/de/Design/DerFrankfurterAdler/589/1680/28591/mod876-details1/104.aspx
  8. ^ Konrad Schneider: The Frankfurt eagle. Coats of arms, seals and flags of the city of Frankfurt am Main and its districts. Frankfurt 2011, pp. 21-25