German flag

“ The red and the white in the German flag represents the commercial prosperity of the nation, while the black and white symbolises the strong arm of the State prepared to protect and foster it. The flags of these three cities still retain the old colours, Lubeck being half white and half red, Bremen red and white stripes, and Hamburg a white castle on a red field. ”

“ We saw many sad faces and heard many sad stories from the brave daughters of France, mothers of heroes then contending with the German hordes. But their faces brightened at the sight of our flag. They recognized it as the emblem of freedom, and those who bore it as faithful allies and friends. Matrons, young women, girls, and children thronged around us at every halting place. Some offered us food, others wreaths and bouquets, and all greeted us with glad smiles and cheers of welcome. ”

“ For that reason the undertaking which I intrust to you and which you must fulfil in company with your comrades and the ships which are already out there is really one of protection and not one of defiance. Under the protecting banner of our German flag of war we expect that the rights which we are justified in demanding will be guaranteed to our commerce, to the German merchant, and to German ships—the same right which is vouchsafed by strangers to all other nations. ”

“ The statue is gay with flowers now, and with flags of all the allies. Our flag is there, the flag the French call le drapeau étoilé, the bestarred banner. May it stay there until what it has gone to France for has been accomplished, until the utterly crushed and vanquished German army has been pursued beyond the Rhine, until something of what the women of France and of martyred Belgium have endured has been paid for.
Not in the same coin, however. The men who have suffered so bravely are incapable of such crimes. ”

“ The German merchant flag has red, white, and black horizontal stripes.
Flags have grown by custom and international law to represent nationality. If they are insulted the insult is to the nation. In war they are protected by lives, and in peace they pass around the world, or float from their staffs on land—marks of their nation's strength and supremacy.
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“ We know that every German citizen will fight for the German flag because he is proud of it and has personal reason to be grateful to it, since it represents fair play, large opportunity, a satisfactory life for him and his children.”
The prince maintained that here were new elements in the problem of Germany’s conquest of America. Not only were the invaders more valiant warriors possessed of a better fighting machine, but they came with a moral and spiritual superiority that must make strong appeal to Americans themselves. ”

“ The flourishing of the Hansa, interesting and beautiful, and for a time powerful as it was, had to pass away, because it lacked the support of the imperial power. Through the founding of the empire under my grandfather all things were changed, and now the German merchant can go his way peacefully, not under a foreign but under his own flag; he can exercise all his capacities and be sure that, when it is necessary, the protection of the empire will stand behind him. That is only possible when all our powers are united under our German flag. ”

“ Not till her flag floats regularly to the breeze in the most distant countries, instead of being that of a casual visitor, will Austria, and through her the entire German nation, receive that respect, and occupy that position among the family of nations, to which her intelligence, her energy, and her important influence upon the progress of civilization alike entitle her. ”

“ If they do, it is because they are not allowed to display their own, and because they feel somehow that the best way to show that they have still a flag is to adopt the colours of the great country which has so generously come to their help. ”

“ Even including the German parts of Austria there was barely one quarter-million of square miles on which German-speaking people could go on growing under their own flags; while the English-speaking people of the British Empire and the United States had twenty times as much land, fit for whites, on which to grow bigger and bigger populations of their own blood under their own flags. This meant that the new, strong, and most ambitious German Empire was doomed to an ever-dwindling future as a world-power in comparison with the British Empire. ”

“ As I had thought it quite likely that the people of some of the coast regions where we might be forced to land would be unacquainted with the German war flag, I had taken the flag of our merchant marine with me also. It was now produced and displayed to the Arabs, but this, too, they [116] did not recognize. Then we pointed to the French armored cruiser lying at anchor in the roadstead, shook our fists at it with the most extravagant gestures, and all together roared, “Boom! Boom! Boom!” ”

“ The German imperial standard has the iron cross with its white border displayed on a yellow field, diapered over in each of the four quarters with three black eagles and a crown. In the centre of the cross is a shield bearing the arms of Prussia surmounted by a crown, and surrounded by a collar of the Order of the Black Eagle. In the four arms of the crown are the legend Gott mit uns 1870. The United States flag and the tricolour of France have already been fully dealt with, and in both countries the one flag is common to both men-of-war and ships of the mercantile marine. ”

“ RAEDER: That is quite a regular ruse of war, that warships carry a foreign flag. A requisite for the legality of that act, however, is that at the moment of an enemy action, the moment fire is opened, their own flag must be hoisted in time. That has always been done in the German Navy, especially in the case of our auxiliary cruisers, which frequently sailed under a foreign flag in order to avoid being reported by merchant ships, but which always lowered that flag in time. That is a matter of honor. It must be added that in this case, as the War Diary shows... ”

“ An Emperor can only undertake to protect a seaport when he is in a position with his cannon to protect her flag, even in the farthermost corners of the world, whether it be that of Lübeck, or of Hamburg, or of Bremen, or of Prussia. ”

“ Flagge, feminine, ‘flag, ensign, standard,’ borrowed, like most words with gg (see Dogge, Bagger) , from Low German and Dutch in the Modern High German period; compare Dutch vlag, English flag, Danish flag, Swedish flagg. ”

“ With the oath to the flag you have sworn allegiance as German men, and even before the altar of God, under the open skies, and upon His crucifix, as good Christians must. He who is not a good Christian is not a brave man and no Prussian soldier; and he cannot fulfil under any circumstances what is demanded of a soldier in the Prussian army.
Your duty is not easy; it demands of you self-control and self-abnegation, the two highest qualities of a Christian, and in addition unconditional obedience and subordination to the will of those who are appointed above you. ”

“ It was this princely power that made it possible for the house of Hohenzollern to take up the German imperial dignity. They founded that dynastic power which the German Emperor must have in order to be in a position to care for and protect powerfully the welfare of the empire everywhere and to force its opponents to respect its flag.
His monument now stands before the academy. That younger generation to whom the future belongs, which is to cultivate the seeds that we have sown and to reap the harvest of our labors, may now direct its gaze toward this prince and be edified by his example. ”

“ The colours of by far the greatest frequency of occurrence are red, white, and blue; yellow also is not uncommon; orange is only found once, in Fig. 249, where it has a special significance, since this is the flag of the Orange Free State. Green occurs sparingly. Italy (Fig. 197) is perhaps the best known example. We also find it in the Brazilian flag (Fig. 169) , the Mexican (Fig. 172) , in the Hungarian tricolor (Fig. 214) , and in Figs. 199, 201, 209, the flags of smaller German States, but it is more especially associated with Mohammedan States, as in Figs. ”

“ Many Hamburg vessels sailed under charter of English and other houses in foreign, especially Chinese, waters. Since 1868 all German ships have carried a common flag—black, white, red; but formerly Oldenburg, Hanover, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg and Prussia had each its own flag, and Schleswig-Holstein vessels sailed under the Danish flag. The German mercantile fleet occupies, in respect of the number of vessels, the fourth place—after Great Britain, the United States of America and Norway; but in respect of tonnage it stands third—after Great Britain and the United States only. ”

“ Every man binds his flag to the staff in the morning and hopes to conquer. Not every one is successful. In spite of that, we rejoice that on this day of the Elbe regatta not only German but also many boats of related and friendly peoples are present and make the scene a picturesque one. ”

“ The more Germans go out upon the waters, whether it be in the races [182] of regattas, whether it be in journeys across the ocean, or in the service of the battle-flag, so much the better will it be for us. For when the German has once learned to direct his glance upon what is distant and great, the pettiness which surrounds him in daily life on all sides will disappear. Whoever wishes to have this larger and freer outlook can find no better place than one of the Hanseatic cities. ”

“ If every one with his hand upon his heart asks himself this question sincerely, many a man will find it difficult to answer. And then, gentlemen, let us draw a lesson from the personality of the great King and decide where it was that we have failed in the work, where we have allowed our spirits to flag, and where dark thoughts and fears have bewildered our minds. Away with them! And just as the great King was never left in the lurch by the old Ally, so our Fatherland and this beautiful province will always be near His heart. ”

“ Our fiery patriotism seems quite content to let our decorative crowns and gilded emblems and wreaths be “made in Germany,” and the popular imagination is sufficiently lifted by union jacks,193 supplied in “all sizes” down to the pocket-handkerchief by the dauntless commercial instinct aforesaid.
Nothing, of course, gives colour and movement so readily as bunting, and the very sight of a flag is exciting. But flags are dangerous things, and private zeal in the display of flags often outruns heraldic discretion. One sees strange treatment of the national emblem sometimes. ”

“ It is safe to say that there was hardly a man or woman of that crowd who had not a soldier at the front; and there before them hung the enemy's first flag—a splendid silk flag, white and black and crimson, and embroidered in gold. It was the flag of an Alsatian regiment—a regiment of Prussianized Alsace. It symbolized all they most abhorred in the whole abhorrent job that lay ahead of them; it symbolized also their finest ardour and their noblest hate, and the reason why, if every other reason failed, France could never lay down arms till the last of such flags was low. ”

“ That vignette, after renewing from month to month before our readers, for nearly four years, as gracious and fragrant a memory as can engage the love of a New-England heart, gave place, in the month of June, 1861, to the only emblem, no longer personal, which might claim to supplant it. The national flag, during a struggle which has seen its dignity insulted only to rouse and nerve the spirit which shall vindicate its glory, has displaced that bearded and ruffed portraiture. ”

“ But the marvellous model reconstructed by Ferdinand of Austria in 1837 at a cost of 152,000 francs, reveals, if it be exact, that seamy side which is always the obverse of Magnificence. At first the eye is taken up with its opulence of decoration, as it seems to take the water with its proud keel, and its great all-topping flag of the lion and the cross. ”

“ In our great wars in which the navy of Great Britain played so prominent a part, we became so accustomed to see the flag of the enemy bent on under our own ensign, that if an exceptional case occurred where the position of the two flags was reversed, it went home to the heart of every loyal subject with a pang which the loss of many ships by storm and tempest would not have produced.
Yet how few of us know what the national colours are, what the Union is, what the Royal Standard is. ”

“ Above everything else he was an American through and through. He was proud of his country, of its traditions, of its history, of its glorious flag. For that flag he had risked his life again and again. He loved it with a consuming passion. Old Glory! The tears came to his eyes as he thought of it. The flag that had always stood for human freedom and human rights, the flag that had never covered an ignoble cause, the flag that had never been sullied by stain, had never been smirched by defeat, had never been dragged in the dust. ”

“ As at early dawn the stars stand first, and then it grows light, and then as the sun advances, that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only light, and every fold significant of liberty. ”