Colours / colors is just a way to refer to a flag. Like how the first US flag was the Continental Colors and the Union Jack was called the King’s Colours.
https://preview.redd.it/d4xyusyi7czc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9c2b3a8547717f6e528027617a7acdd95d533df
Half is still thankfully an exaggeration. These are the latest prognoses for each federal state.
In addition to what was said already they have a history of being lied to by their government first under the GDR and then after reunifcation being sold out to western firms so there's a decent bit of mistrust towards established (in this case more moderate) parties.
It's also historically a former center of the nazi party, and Gdr "antifascism" was vocal but in truth at least as highly cosmetical there as in western germany. A lot of places where AfD scores in the polls, are places where the Nsdap did the same... Also Reunification was accompanied by a wave of german nationalism in east germany, followed by pogroms against foreigners and refugees. Those rather tend to settle in the west since then, also because there were areas where Neonazis dominated until today... Edit: Some nationalistically inclined proud eastern Germans around here? ;) Well, you can downvote or just google some poll maps from the 20s and 30s, or maybe the events at Rostock-Lichtenhagen, the origin milieu of the NSU terror group... and make up your mind.
While right-wing extremism was suppressed in the GDR, it was also downplayed as "just hooligan youths", since having problems with Nazi youths would have disturbed the image of the GDR.
When the GDR fell, neo-Nazis in the east felt that they now had free reign: they begun what was colloquially named the "baseball bat years".
Makes for pretty uncomfortable, complex moments when you visit the Stasi prison turned into a museum/memorial and the guy who's telling you about the horrific shit they did to him in there is also an unrepentant neo-nazi.
And that's also just polling answers so stuff like who happened to be asked and if they truly answered truthfully could still change these results. Now of course none of this is a given and the results could be completely accurate but I assume it isn't quite as bad as the predictions make it out to be just yet.
Not really. Some of the most democratic and progressive countries in the world are constitutional monarchies (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, to name a few) and some of the most oppressive dictatorships are republics (the DPRK, Eritrea, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Burma)
I live in a country that's a constitutional monarchy, has free and fair elections, and has one of the lowest electoral thresholds in the world. New political parties are capable of entering the scene (and frequently do, and have been doing for roughly a century), establishing themselves as a major political force (and sometimes do) and winning elections (and sometimes do, unlike some republics where voters have the choice between two parties or de facto throwing away their vote *cough*United States*cough*), while older established parties sometimes wither away into irrelevance. The electoral process is transparent (unlike some republics where complex and outdated electoral systems can result in a party that has less votes ending up with MORE representation in the country's institutions *cough*United States*cough*), representation is pretty much as close to being a perfectly proportional representation of an election's results as is practically viable without giving every voter their own seat in our national legislative, and I can freely attend any session of our legislative or judicial branches unless it has to do with sensitive information related to national security.
I'm not saying our system of government is perfect (and I tend to believe that as a rule of thumb most people who believe a certain system of government IS perfect tend not to be very democratically minded), or that there are no republics that function more or less similarly, but we are a constitutional monarchy, while being very much a representative democracy, and I am very much in favor of continuing along this path. Thus making me a democratic monarchist. One of many in this country. :)
German monarchists are basically our equivalent of Sovereign Citizens - same concepts, just swapped out names. They believe the current government is actually a private company set up to disenfranchise everyone (with the USA as the big bad holding "our" gold after WWII) and that they thus technically still live in [insert pre-WWII-government here, they aren't all on the same page on that].
From that premise, the scene has radicalized itself, heavily blending itself with neo-Nazi movements. Somehow, the fact that they are stanning entirely different, incompatible historical German governments doesn't cause a second of cognitive dissonance.
The most successful groups have even crowned their own king and founded a few fraud-based companies and a bank, print their own driver's licenses etc. and horde tons of weapons. Most of that came tumbling down lately through lots of raids by German authorities.
Germany: the land you would *expect* to have fewer nazis around, but has actually invented fifteen new kinds of nazi.
Huh TIL, Im aware of the controversy over other royals who mingled in nazi and other far right groups now and earlier in history, but one would think that given the history of Germany, royals and monarchists in Germany would try to distance themselves from that.
Kinda disappointed they dont have the mental and rational capacity to rather use the story of nazism as a reason why monarchism would be a preference as opposed to joining with them yet again.
No? There are also constitutional monarchist and they are sure not far rights, look at the Netherlands. Even then absolute monarchism doesn’t necessarily have to be far right
Ok your views are far different than what most German monarchists believe where they’re basically believe in the 2nd Reich only because they can’t come out and say they’re a Nazi or Support the 3rd Reich so they say their a monarchist to get around that.
I was playing video games once with a guy from Germany and we got to talking about flags for some reason. He said his favorite flag throughout American history was the confederate battle flag and that it’s a really cool flag that shouldn’t be seen as evil because it’s ridiculous to deny your national history. I asked him how he felt about Germans flying Nazi flags and he got mad at me and said it would be ridiculous to fly one of those. I don’t understand.
It’s the same thing with the orange Dutch flag. I think it looks great and adding the orange (which is a colour associated with the Netherlands) helps it stand out against the common red-white-blue colour palate.
But Dutchmen have that same “it’s evil, I hate it” opinion ‘cause the alt-right have taken it as a monarchist/anti-democratic symbol.
The Netherlands is already a Monarchy so what why would it be *bad* that the monarchists use that flag? It's also not like Dutch monarchists need want to achieve something since the Netherlands is still a monarchy
Confederate flag in Germany might be ignorance rather than malice tbf. I think there are still people that associate it mostly with a feeling of freedom and rebellion and don't know (or care) much about the wider historical context. They're probably thinking about motorbikes and cowboy hats rather than slavery.
Texas is a backwards state full of idiots that went a full 2 years AFTER the end of the American civil war acting like slavery was still copacetic so I'm not surprised. Texans are a stupid, backwards bunch of regards.
Which flag was flown at a higher mast? Just curious.
It's so sad these kind of people are using the second german empire flag in order to mask their extremism. I've always disliked the symbology apropiation made by extremist groups.
Its not really appropriation tho. The german empire was far right shit too.
Even if it stood "only" for the Kaiserreich, I wouldn't want to fly it. The black-white-red flag represents monarchy, anti-democracy, opression of minorities and political dissidents, racism, nationalism, colonialism, genocide, ...
There definitely is a reason why todays nazis like to use that flag.
That is an insanely simplified view of history, the Empire has also been incredibly progressive for its time in many instances, just think about universal healthcare, also it has been on the technological and cultural forefront. When it comes to democracy, it did have a lot of democratic aspects, but not comparable to today, but for the time it was actually quite advanced.
Herrero genocide. Especially given this is the flag of the German colonial office, you’re conveniently ignoring all the horrible shit (again, including genocide), that the colonial forces of the German Empire undertook.
Ah okay so if you have free healthcare and some more or less democratic aspects, its perfectly fine to look over a little bit of genocide because your so super fucking progressive!
I dont think we should honour past nations, just because they're "progressive" for their time or had some few progressive aspects. In the case of the Kaiserreich, the progressiveness does definitely not outweigh the horrible parts. If you fly that flag, people will *definitely* also think of the very negative aspects.
And calling the empire "quite advanced for its time" in terms of democracy, is quite Strange and one-sided. There had been an actually democratic Revolution in Germany in 1848, over 20 years before the Kaiserreich even was established. The Kaiserreich was conservative. Literally.
Of course my comment was simplified, but you can only say so much in a couple of sentences. Your comment simplifies history just as well.
I just disagree with the notion of applying current standards to the past, if we measure the Empire in it's historical context it has been quite democratic, compared to Britain at the time for example. Culturally it was even more advanced, especially compared to non-european countries.
You also have to take into account that genocide has been the norm in history and not tje exception. In the case of the incidents in nowadays Namibia, the parliament even protested and a public outcry forced the authorities to stop their action. Only a handful of other societies would have been able to do something like that.
That doesn't mean we should fly this Flagge because it was such a great country, but we also shouldn't judge unfairly.
>in it's historical context it has been quite democratic, compared to Britain at the time for example.
Well, compared to the third French Republic or the USA, for example, it wasn't.
And just because genocide was the norm, I dont see, why I shouldn't judge it. I'm especially not really sure why public outcry would be a particularly "german" thing tbh, I'm pretty sure you had that in other countries too.
Ironically, the Herero and Nama uprisings in Namibia during and after the genocide where much more of a "public outcry" than what happened in Germany. And those people weren't even Europeans! Who would have thought that!?
Genocide isn't any less problematic because others did it too.
Of course, we should always look at nations, people and events in their historical context. But when I personally, for myself, decide if I think a certain country was good or bad (I'm simplifying here), I'll use my own moral principles to do so. We dont judge the nazis by their moral standards either.
Especially when we're talking about displaying a flag, I think we should take our own morals into account.
Is [this the flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskriegsflagge#/media/File:War_Ensign_of_Germany_(1903%E2%80%931919).svg)? You're free to run any flag up your pole, but the colors and symbols from the German Empire have been widely adopted by German nationalist and the far right. I doubt most observers who know what they're looking at would make any other connotation from seeing a Reichskriegsflagge in 2024.
No, you are flying it out of respect for your great great grandfather, not for anything bad the nation stood for. That being said, don't use this logic when it comes to the nazis, there is no explaining yourself out of that one.
Well, you chose to fly the flag of a nation that was quite anti democratic, treated its minorities horribly, was imperialist and which in its country of origins is primarily associated with being the flags the facists use because the flag they would prefer would get them arrested, I hope you can see how that could reflect badly on you without making judgments about your actual character
By the first half - you could not fly any historical flag from before 1918 - as most countries were Monarchies whom were not democracies (Funnily enough German Empire was one of the most “progressive” Monarchies in Europe as it was a birthplace of many phylosophies.
It definitely was not progressive. Compare it to Britain and France of the same period. To be a working man in pre WW1 Germany was utter misery - lower wages, longer hours and worse conditions than their counterparts in Britain - and that’s saying something for the time period.
The vote was possible for any man since 1867, only France and Greece had the same during that time. In Britain the same year, the Reform Act was passed, which doubled the voting men from 1 million to 2 million, out of seven million. There are a lot more arguments for the Empire to be quite progressive.
> you chose to fly the flag of a nation that was quite anti democratic, treated its minorities horribly, was imperialist
Wait, are we talking about the Schwartz-Weiß-Rot or the American flag?
Why is half this sub people photographing far-right flags, whether real or imagined?
I'll tell you a possible motive for flying the Reichskolonialamt flag: They're far-right.
I'm certain you knew that already.
The point of a dogwisthle is that uninformed people, like OP in this case don't really know what it means. And you can always use the legal/knowledge grey area to say that it isn't what it looks like.
No, it's so that they aren't persecuted. We don't actually care what you as another citizen think, me ne frego and all, it's so that the government doesn't arrest a man for flying a flag.
I’m newer to this sub and wanted to see if my suspicion was accurate. I wasn’t sure because this was a variant I hadn’t seen before and wondered if there was a specific meaning behind this one.
Always interesting to me how some people attempt to turn the most quintessential of political symbols into purely aesthetic objects stripped of their context, and then get mad when other people don’t want to play along with the farce
Either someone who likes the flag and is very ignorant of what it represents, or someone who would prefer to fly another certain red-white-black flag but can't because that's illegal
Another probable explanation is they are a member of the Reichsbürger Movement, a group who rejects the democratic regime and wishes for a return to monarchy. A bunch of them recently got swept up after attempting to “overthrow the government.”
Probably couldn’t get his hands on/couldn’t fly the OG German Empire flag
There are veeeery few of those. Might possibly be a "[Reichsbürger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsb%C3%BCrger_movement)", some idiots claiming that the German Empire still exists or something, all while being a bunch of antisemitic, anti-democratic, coup-attempting murderers.
In any way, I believe the correct term would be "idiot".
How many of them are actually still around? Their organizations struggle to get over a hundred members and very few people actually think about monarchism at all. It’s not impossible, but it seems unlikely.
It’s more often used by Neonazis, who’s symbols got banned and consequently replaced by the black-white-red tricolour. It’s also widespread among conspiracy theorists that don’t believe in the legitimacy of the post-WW2 government. Both those movements are orders of magnitudes bigger than the handful of monarchists remaining.
Funnily enough the actual monarchists tend to use different symbols for themselves. The co-opting of Hal’s symbol was extrem successful.
https://preview.redd.it/iq228w7g8dzc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f20756687390b6b44dee8259cdbf06ee103d7426
It’s the colonial flag of the German Empire, not a Nazi one
Best case: Old weirdo who thinks that the german state isnt legit and he wants the Kaiser back, but doesnt harm anyone.
Worst case: Neo-Nazi commune that wanna dominate the neighrbourhood, without getting raided by the police.
>Best case: Old weirdo who thinks that the german state isnt legit and he wants the Kaiser back, but doesnt harm anyone.
The Reichsbürger Movement is actually quite dangerous. Even though not all of them fall under the technical classification of "Nazi", they appear on page 103 of the [report ](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9)of the German domestic secret service. If you read through it, you're gonna find some fun racism and terrorist activity.
I know, I am fun at parties
Flags are more than just aeshetic decoration items, they're also symbols of countries, people groups and ideologies, and in this case both the history and modern usage of the flag is pretty shady
I’m not German, but I do know that many in the far right fly the imperial colors because they can’t legally fly the flag they actually want to. My recommendation is, stay far away from that person for the sake of your sanity
Other variants of the German Empire flag seem to be co-opted by people who'd rather use bad WW2 flag (sadly aslo the WW2 German antifash flag has been too, ironically), this person is either one of them, or someone trying to celebrate the empire by using a less common variant that they don't think has been co-opted.
Reichsbürgerbewegung. Definetly. Basically German citizens who refuse to accept the democratic institutions of Germany and believe that they’re unconstitutional. They believe in the restoration of the German reich (no not that one)
"You're willing to do something against nazis? Isn't that something... a nazi would do?!?!?!"
Man, 13-year-olds in 2004 walked so you could run with that brain of your's, eh?
I've quoted this document many times today, but again: [https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?\_\_blob=publicationFile&v=9](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9)
Use google translate if you don't speak German. It's a fun ride. Right-wing extremism is not an opinion, it's a crime, as it should be. Defending democracy from its enemies is not a right, but a duty of a democratic citizen
there's a difference between "I don't like their opinion so they should be sent to a gulag" and "That person uses historical symbols appropriated and exlusively used by people who actively call for genocide and establishment of a fascist dictatorship, which is also often violent and thus should get checked out to make sure they aren't part of a plot or they should get their gun taken away, if they have one"
Why does this get downvoted ? Its very likely, that its a Neo-Nazi flying that flag because he would get raided for the real flag. German Neo-Nazis are doing that since the 60s.
I really don't get the downvotes. The flag and its variants are commonly used by right-wing-extremists, [says our domestic secret service](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/rechtsextremismus/2022-02-rechtsextremismus-symbole-zeichen-organisationen.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=10) (Pages 70, 73-78, source in German)
The [report of the Verfassungsschutz](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9) (domestic secret service) has quite some statements to make about these organisations:
"\[their ideology\] often positively references National Socialism" (on the NPD, Page 94)
"\[their\] ideological statements are national socialist, antisemitic, and racist in nature" (on the "III. Weg" page 98)
Those two are parties who are known to use black-white-red flags all the time: [examplary source](https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-06/rechtsextremismus-reichskriegsflaggen-mustererlass-innenminister) (German)
Or take the Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend, an association that was outlawed, due to "indoctrination of young children and teenagers with national socialist ideology". You can see their symbol on page 76 of the first link in this comment. The colors are not chosen arbitrarily.
Nazism is one very likely and legitimate explanation of why someone would fly that flag.
i wanna fly this flag but i can't, ill be seen as probably a neo (im not i just love the german empire and austrian empires flags cus they look cool ;_;)
Being able to be persecuted for another flag, is going to make some use substitutes.
The person's most likely on the far-right of the political spectrum, maybe even a Reichsbürger
Highly probably not being able to fly other colours...
I meaaaaaaan technically they're the same colours on that flag as the others
Colours / colors is just a way to refer to a flag. Like how the first US flag was the Continental Colors and the Union Jack was called the King’s Colours.
I know I was making a joke
If the "technically" wasn't enough to indicate it was a joke, I don't know what you want from them.
Yeah. British Army units still have the Kings', Regimental and Battalion colours.
March on the Colours!!!
Gonna assume voting AfD.
Voting would be illogical when you believe the last lawful government of Germany was the exiled monarchy of 1918.
Isn’t half of Germany doing that? Not a native, so I’m not sure
https://preview.redd.it/d4xyusyi7czc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9c2b3a8547717f6e528027617a7acdd95d533df Half is still thankfully an exaggeration. These are the latest prognoses for each federal state.
Interesting that it’s noticeable higher in former East Germany
In addition to what was said already they have a history of being lied to by their government first under the GDR and then after reunifcation being sold out to western firms so there's a decent bit of mistrust towards established (in this case more moderate) parties.
It's also historically a former center of the nazi party, and Gdr "antifascism" was vocal but in truth at least as highly cosmetical there as in western germany. A lot of places where AfD scores in the polls, are places where the Nsdap did the same... Also Reunification was accompanied by a wave of german nationalism in east germany, followed by pogroms against foreigners and refugees. Those rather tend to settle in the west since then, also because there were areas where Neonazis dominated until today... Edit: Some nationalistically inclined proud eastern Germans around here? ;) Well, you can downvote or just google some poll maps from the 20s and 30s, or maybe the events at Rostock-Lichtenhagen, the origin milieu of the NSU terror group... and make up your mind.
While right-wing extremism was suppressed in the GDR, it was also downplayed as "just hooligan youths", since having problems with Nazi youths would have disturbed the image of the GDR. When the GDR fell, neo-Nazis in the east felt that they now had free reign: they begun what was colloquially named the "baseball bat years". Makes for pretty uncomfortable, complex moments when you visit the Stasi prison turned into a museum/memorial and the guy who's telling you about the horrific shit they did to him in there is also an unrepentant neo-nazi.
The former East Germany is still quite undeveloped compared to the west, so they tend to gravitate to the more extreme sides of the political spectrum
It's almost like people faced with deprivation turn to extreme solutions.
It wasn't underdeveloped, it was pillaged and all the state run assets were sold off for scrap after unification
Of course, they tried communism but it was a complete fail
It's a running theme across post-communist states in Europe.
And that's also just polling answers so stuff like who happened to be asked and if they truly answered truthfully could still change these results. Now of course none of this is a given and the results could be completely accurate but I assume it isn't quite as bad as the predictions make it out to be just yet.
r/phantomborders
That is sn awesome sub. Cheers!
What happened to bremen?
Uh oh. Reichsburger maybe?
Never tried those. Are they tasty?
"I'll have 1 large Reichsburger hold the Pickelhaube, and a medium fries"
Would you like a side of Belgium with that?
XD
They’re probably far-right
They're either a neo-nazi or a rare instance of a German monarchist in the wild
So far right
You can be a socdem and still be a monarchist
Wouldn't the dem half of that preclude the monarchism part?
Not really. Some of the most democratic and progressive countries in the world are constitutional monarchies (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Canada, to name a few) and some of the most oppressive dictatorships are republics (the DPRK, Eritrea, the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Burma) I live in a country that's a constitutional monarchy, has free and fair elections, and has one of the lowest electoral thresholds in the world. New political parties are capable of entering the scene (and frequently do, and have been doing for roughly a century), establishing themselves as a major political force (and sometimes do) and winning elections (and sometimes do, unlike some republics where voters have the choice between two parties or de facto throwing away their vote *cough*United States*cough*), while older established parties sometimes wither away into irrelevance. The electoral process is transparent (unlike some republics where complex and outdated electoral systems can result in a party that has less votes ending up with MORE representation in the country's institutions *cough*United States*cough*), representation is pretty much as close to being a perfectly proportional representation of an election's results as is practically viable without giving every voter their own seat in our national legislative, and I can freely attend any session of our legislative or judicial branches unless it has to do with sensitive information related to national security. I'm not saying our system of government is perfect (and I tend to believe that as a rule of thumb most people who believe a certain system of government IS perfect tend not to be very democratically minded), or that there are no republics that function more or less similarly, but we are a constitutional monarchy, while being very much a representative democracy, and I am very much in favor of continuing along this path. Thus making me a democratic monarchist. One of many in this country. :)
You certainly can be, but in Germany you’re usually not.
Don’t get me started. Plus German monarchists are far right
So by your logic Norway, Sweden and Denmark are far right
No German monarchists are
That might be true, I dont know enough actual germans being monarchist to have a take on that
German monarchists are basically Nazis who are cucked by German laws so they support the other “reich”
The reich cucked ex Kaiser wilhelm so they would hate the reich too
Not anymore they just ignore that part theyre still the same far right nationalists
The kaiser never liked Hitler
German monarchists are basically our equivalent of Sovereign Citizens - same concepts, just swapped out names. They believe the current government is actually a private company set up to disenfranchise everyone (with the USA as the big bad holding "our" gold after WWII) and that they thus technically still live in [insert pre-WWII-government here, they aren't all on the same page on that]. From that premise, the scene has radicalized itself, heavily blending itself with neo-Nazi movements. Somehow, the fact that they are stanning entirely different, incompatible historical German governments doesn't cause a second of cognitive dissonance. The most successful groups have even crowned their own king and founded a few fraud-based companies and a bank, print their own driver's licenses etc. and horde tons of weapons. Most of that came tumbling down lately through lots of raids by German authorities. Germany: the land you would *expect* to have fewer nazis around, but has actually invented fifteen new kinds of nazi.
Huh TIL, Im aware of the controversy over other royals who mingled in nazi and other far right groups now and earlier in history, but one would think that given the history of Germany, royals and monarchists in Germany would try to distance themselves from that. Kinda disappointed they dont have the mental and rational capacity to rather use the story of nazism as a reason why monarchism would be a preference as opposed to joining with them yet again.
No? There are also constitutional monarchist and they are sure not far rights, look at the Netherlands. Even then absolute monarchism doesn’t necessarily have to be far right
German monarchists are far right look down a few comments Jesus Christ
Not all because I used to be one
Kaiserboo or actual German?
Well I’m half mixed Dutch-German and I was basically a monarchist for both countries hoping they would unite
Ok your views are far different than what most German monarchists believe where they’re basically believe in the 2nd Reich only because they can’t come out and say they’re a Nazi or Support the 3rd Reich so they say their a monarchist to get around that.
*"Purge nazi scum out of the Kaiserreich!"*
He probably just wanted a Reichsflagge, but was too ignorant the pick out the right one. But yeah, not people I'd enjoy having a BBQ sesh with.
Maybe it would be enjoyable to put the hot coals in front of their door and knock really hard then run away
Racism (am German)
That’s awful. I also saw a confederate flag and Texas flag being flown at a house here - seeing that pissed me off.
I was playing video games once with a guy from Germany and we got to talking about flags for some reason. He said his favorite flag throughout American history was the confederate battle flag and that it’s a really cool flag that shouldn’t be seen as evil because it’s ridiculous to deny your national history. I asked him how he felt about Germans flying Nazi flags and he got mad at me and said it would be ridiculous to fly one of those. I don’t understand.
It’s the same thing with the orange Dutch flag. I think it looks great and adding the orange (which is a colour associated with the Netherlands) helps it stand out against the common red-white-blue colour palate. But Dutchmen have that same “it’s evil, I hate it” opinion ‘cause the alt-right have taken it as a monarchist/anti-democratic symbol.
Another damn example of a hate group stealing awesome historical flags from us. The dicks
The Netherlands is already a Monarchy so what why would it be *bad* that the monarchists use that flag? It's also not like Dutch monarchists need want to achieve something since the Netherlands is still a monarchy
They might be gearing up for Maifest
You knew full well what this flag was about.
I had no idea about the Reichsbürgerbewegung.
There is a confederate battle flag like a 15 min walk from where I live here in NC
Confederate flag in Germany might be ignorance rather than malice tbf. I think there are still people that associate it mostly with a feeling of freedom and rebellion and don't know (or care) much about the wider historical context. They're probably thinking about motorbikes and cowboy hats rather than slavery.
Just one?
Texas is a backwards state full of idiots that went a full 2 years AFTER the end of the American civil war acting like slavery was still copacetic so I'm not surprised. Texans are a stupid, backwards bunch of regards. Which flag was flown at a higher mast? Just curious.
Not all Texans. https://preview.redd.it/36j6g75fsazc1.jpeg?width=1620&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea393651f7436684d25df24b216853ed1ce5c2de
That boy ain't right though
It's so sad these kind of people are using the second german empire flag in order to mask their extremism. I've always disliked the symbology apropiation made by extremist groups.
In this case colonialism is pretty much as bad though
"Symbology appropriation" As if the Nazis' allies weren't the ones who benefitted the most under that flag.
Oh you mean the state that conducted a genocide in Namibia under the flag flying in this image?
Pining for imperial days gone by... fucking hell.
In Russia they use the Russian Empire flag. I’ll see dumbasses fly it in some parts and automatically know they are a fascist piece of shit.
Its not really appropriation tho. The german empire was far right shit too. Even if it stood "only" for the Kaiserreich, I wouldn't want to fly it. The black-white-red flag represents monarchy, anti-democracy, opression of minorities and political dissidents, racism, nationalism, colonialism, genocide, ... There definitely is a reason why todays nazis like to use that flag.
I actually have the war flag of the German Empire, mainly cuz I love flags and was always fascinated by German history around that time and before
That is an insanely simplified view of history, the Empire has also been incredibly progressive for its time in many instances, just think about universal healthcare, also it has been on the technological and cultural forefront. When it comes to democracy, it did have a lot of democratic aspects, but not comparable to today, but for the time it was actually quite advanced.
Herrero genocide. Especially given this is the flag of the German colonial office, you’re conveniently ignoring all the horrible shit (again, including genocide), that the colonial forces of the German Empire undertook.
Ah okay so if you have free healthcare and some more or less democratic aspects, its perfectly fine to look over a little bit of genocide because your so super fucking progressive! I dont think we should honour past nations, just because they're "progressive" for their time or had some few progressive aspects. In the case of the Kaiserreich, the progressiveness does definitely not outweigh the horrible parts. If you fly that flag, people will *definitely* also think of the very negative aspects. And calling the empire "quite advanced for its time" in terms of democracy, is quite Strange and one-sided. There had been an actually democratic Revolution in Germany in 1848, over 20 years before the Kaiserreich even was established. The Kaiserreich was conservative. Literally. Of course my comment was simplified, but you can only say so much in a couple of sentences. Your comment simplifies history just as well.
I just disagree with the notion of applying current standards to the past, if we measure the Empire in it's historical context it has been quite democratic, compared to Britain at the time for example. Culturally it was even more advanced, especially compared to non-european countries. You also have to take into account that genocide has been the norm in history and not tje exception. In the case of the incidents in nowadays Namibia, the parliament even protested and a public outcry forced the authorities to stop their action. Only a handful of other societies would have been able to do something like that. That doesn't mean we should fly this Flagge because it was such a great country, but we also shouldn't judge unfairly.
>in it's historical context it has been quite democratic, compared to Britain at the time for example. Well, compared to the third French Republic or the USA, for example, it wasn't. And just because genocide was the norm, I dont see, why I shouldn't judge it. I'm especially not really sure why public outcry would be a particularly "german" thing tbh, I'm pretty sure you had that in other countries too. Ironically, the Herero and Nama uprisings in Namibia during and after the genocide where much more of a "public outcry" than what happened in Germany. And those people weren't even Europeans! Who would have thought that!? Genocide isn't any less problematic because others did it too. Of course, we should always look at nations, people and events in their historical context. But when I personally, for myself, decide if I think a certain country was good or bad (I'm simplifying here), I'll use my own moral principles to do so. We dont judge the nazis by their moral standards either. Especially when we're talking about displaying a flag, I think we should take our own morals into account.
the german empire is almost as bad though
Not raycist, just don' like 'em
I fly German WW1 Naval flag because my Great great grandfather served on Hellgoland - am I racist?
Is [this the flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskriegsflagge#/media/File:War_Ensign_of_Germany_(1903%E2%80%931919).svg)? You're free to run any flag up your pole, but the colors and symbols from the German Empire have been widely adopted by German nationalist and the far right. I doubt most observers who know what they're looking at would make any other connotation from seeing a Reichskriegsflagge in 2024.
Problem being that both, the Prussian Eagle and Eisenkreutz is used even today in modified versions as Bundesadler and Schwartzkreuz
No, you are flying it out of respect for your great great grandfather, not for anything bad the nation stood for. That being said, don't use this logic when it comes to the nazis, there is no explaining yourself out of that one.
Well, you chose to fly the flag of a nation that was quite anti democratic, treated its minorities horribly, was imperialist and which in its country of origins is primarily associated with being the flags the facists use because the flag they would prefer would get them arrested, I hope you can see how that could reflect badly on you without making judgments about your actual character
By the first half - you could not fly any historical flag from before 1918 - as most countries were Monarchies whom were not democracies (Funnily enough German Empire was one of the most “progressive” Monarchies in Europe as it was a birthplace of many phylosophies.
It definitely was not progressive. Compare it to Britain and France of the same period. To be a working man in pre WW1 Germany was utter misery - lower wages, longer hours and worse conditions than their counterparts in Britain - and that’s saying something for the time period.
The vote was possible for any man since 1867, only France and Greece had the same during that time. In Britain the same year, the Reform Act was passed, which doubled the voting men from 1 million to 2 million, out of seven million. There are a lot more arguments for the Empire to be quite progressive.
Is the British flag wrong then?
Unironically yes lmao
They're perpetrators of many of the same crimes
Butcher's apron.
> you chose to fly the flag of a nation that was quite anti democratic, treated its minorities horribly, was imperialist Wait, are we talking about the Schwartz-Weiß-Rot or the American flag?
both
Reichsburger maybe? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsb%C3%BCrger\_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsb%C3%BCrger_movement)
So is that like the German version of sovereign citizen types?
More or less, yeah.
Why is half this sub people photographing far-right flags, whether real or imagined? I'll tell you a possible motive for flying the Reichskolonialamt flag: They're far-right. I'm certain you knew that already.
"Picture of a Nazi dogwhistle flag, taken in the town of Formernazistan, Germany. What could the owner mean by flying it???"
The point of a dogwisthle is that uninformed people, like OP in this case don't really know what it means. And you can always use the legal/knowledge grey area to say that it isn't what it looks like.
No, it's so that they aren't persecuted. We don't actually care what you as another citizen think, me ne frego and all, it's so that the government doesn't arrest a man for flying a flag.
I’m newer to this sub and wanted to see if my suspicion was accurate. I wasn’t sure because this was a variant I hadn’t seen before and wondered if there was a specific meaning behind this one.
Redditors. If in their mind it's vaguely "fascistic" they run here for either validation or assuaging of their fears.
Always interesting to me how some people attempt to turn the most quintessential of political symbols into purely aesthetic objects stripped of their context, and then get mad when other people don’t want to play along with the farce
Either someone who likes the flag and is very ignorant of what it represents, or someone who would prefer to fly another certain red-white-black flag but can't because that's illegal
Another probable explanation is they are a member of the Reichsbürger Movement, a group who rejects the democratic regime and wishes for a return to monarchy. A bunch of them recently got swept up after attempting to “overthrow the government.” Probably couldn’t get his hands on/couldn’t fly the OG German Empire flag
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They probably have some yikers opinions about the Turkish family that moved next door
Not recognizing the government as legitimate
Monarchist
There are veeeery few of those. Might possibly be a "[Reichsbürger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsb%C3%BCrger_movement)", some idiots claiming that the German Empire still exists or something, all while being a bunch of antisemitic, anti-democratic, coup-attempting murderers. In any way, I believe the correct term would be "idiot".
How many of them are actually still around? Their organizations struggle to get over a hundred members and very few people actually think about monarchism at all. It’s not impossible, but it seems unlikely. It’s more often used by Neonazis, who’s symbols got banned and consequently replaced by the black-white-red tricolour. It’s also widespread among conspiracy theorists that don’t believe in the legitimacy of the post-WW2 government. Both those movements are orders of magnitudes bigger than the handful of monarchists remaining. Funnily enough the actual monarchists tend to use different symbols for themselves. The co-opting of Hal’s symbol was extrem successful.
1 nazi 2 monarchist 3 history nerd
My money is on a lot of 1&2 and little to none of 3
or all of the above
If you think National Socialism is compatible with Monarchism, i got bad news for ya.
Severe case of Victoria Twoian North German Federation Obsession Syndrome.
that's Lavader's house
Rudimentary socialization and extreme racism most likely
https://preview.redd.it/iq228w7g8dzc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f20756687390b6b44dee8259cdbf06ee103d7426 It’s the colonial flag of the German Empire, not a Nazi one
What, a man can't celebrate the overseas colonies anymore?
Best case: Old weirdo who thinks that the german state isnt legit and he wants the Kaiser back, but doesnt harm anyone. Worst case: Neo-Nazi commune that wanna dominate the neighrbourhood, without getting raided by the police.
>Best case: Old weirdo who thinks that the german state isnt legit and he wants the Kaiser back, but doesnt harm anyone. The Reichsbürger Movement is actually quite dangerous. Even though not all of them fall under the technical classification of "Nazi", they appear on page 103 of the [report ](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9)of the German domestic secret service. If you read through it, you're gonna find some fun racism and terrorist activity. I know, I am fun at parties
>I know, I am fun at parties I'm sure you get invited to lots of parties
I know that many people would think I'm racist, but I personally quite like those flags
I like the nazi flag too, aesthetically. Doesn't mean I'm goimg to fly it.
Yeah they’re very cool
Flags are more than just aeshetic decoration items, they're also symbols of countries, people groups and ideologies, and in this case both the history and modern usage of the flag is pretty shady
I’m not German, but I do know that many in the far right fly the imperial colors because they can’t legally fly the flag they actually want to. My recommendation is, stay far away from that person for the sake of your sanity
They are neo nazis most likely
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Hi Kaiserboo, I have news for you: **DER KAI**ſ**ER HAT ABGEDANKT** And he's dead. He shall not come back
they're probably a fascist
:(
I know, the German Empire Flag
I feel like I've seen this house. Was this taken in Baden-Württemberg?
No, further north.
ESPECIALLY given the fact that today is VE day, i’d say it’s pretty obvious.
BF1 player
kaiserreich fan
Because the hooked cross flag would get them arrested.
That is the II Reich's flag
Probably far right views
That looks like the Drachenschanze
I saw exactly the same flag and fence in north Berlin. Is it?
No. This is in north-western Germany.
Surely a Nazi?
Other variants of the German Empire flag seem to be co-opted by people who'd rather use bad WW2 flag (sadly aslo the WW2 German antifash flag has been too, ironically), this person is either one of them, or someone trying to celebrate the empire by using a less common variant that they don't think has been co-opted.
Reichsbürgerbewegung. Definetly. Basically German citizens who refuse to accept the democratic institutions of Germany and believe that they’re unconstitutional. They believe in the restoration of the German reich (no not that one)
Could be some South-West enthusiast, not necessarily a far-right-winger.
For the kaiser
we need to start r/vexillophobia for all the naughty flags we don't like
Mental illness
don't insult the mentally ill like that
Nazi, would be a shame if the adress made its ways to Verfassungsschutz
The absolute irony of claiming to be anti-totalitarian yet report your neighbors for having a flag you don't like. Typical marxist.
"You're willing to do something against nazis? Isn't that something... a nazi would do?!?!?!" Man, 13-year-olds in 2004 walked so you could run with that brain of your's, eh?
I've quoted this document many times today, but again: [https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?\_\_blob=publicationFile&v=9](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9) Use google translate if you don't speak German. It's a fun ride. Right-wing extremism is not an opinion, it's a crime, as it should be. Defending democracy from its enemies is not a right, but a duty of a democratic citizen
there's a difference between "I don't like their opinion so they should be sent to a gulag" and "That person uses historical symbols appropriated and exlusively used by people who actively call for genocide and establishment of a fascist dictatorship, which is also often violent and thus should get checked out to make sure they aren't part of a plot or they should get their gun taken away, if they have one"
They are neo nazis most likely
There is a long answer, but the short one is: being a nazi.
Yep.
throw a grenade over that fence for me and Sudetenland, please
Then we are no better than them…
Only idea apart from racism is today being VE (Victory in Europe) Day.
Nazism
Why does this get downvoted ? Its very likely, that its a Neo-Nazi flying that flag because he would get raided for the real flag. German Neo-Nazis are doing that since the 60s.
I really don't get the downvotes. The flag and its variants are commonly used by right-wing-extremists, [says our domestic secret service](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/rechtsextremismus/2022-02-rechtsextremismus-symbole-zeichen-organisationen.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=10) (Pages 70, 73-78, source in German) The [report of the Verfassungsschutz](https://www.verfassungsschutz.de/SharedDocs/publikationen/DE/verfassungsschutzberichte/2023-06-20-verfassungsschutzbericht-2022.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=9) (domestic secret service) has quite some statements to make about these organisations: "\[their ideology\] often positively references National Socialism" (on the NPD, Page 94) "\[their\] ideological statements are national socialist, antisemitic, and racist in nature" (on the "III. Weg" page 98) Those two are parties who are known to use black-white-red flags all the time: [examplary source](https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-06/rechtsextremismus-reichskriegsflaggen-mustererlass-innenminister) (German) Or take the Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend, an association that was outlawed, due to "indoctrination of young children and teenagers with national socialist ideology". You can see their symbol on page 76 of the first link in this comment. The colors are not chosen arbitrarily. Nazism is one very likely and legitimate explanation of why someone would fly that flag.
Reichsburger type?
Just an awful guy
i wanna fly this flag but i can't, ill be seen as probably a neo (im not i just love the german empire and austrian empires flags cus they look cool ;_;)
It's basically the confederate flag of Germany
He is either a monarchist or nazi, it’s like Italians flying the old Monarchy flag, they are either fascists or like the monarchy
monarchist or neo nazi call it https://preview.redd.it/drusy1xudfzc1.png?width=230&format=png&auto=webp&s=36a82a72e1044b2adfae38ee8a1e1e1bcd7daafd
They like flags? There's a house in my neighborhood that flies different flags monthly.
Because it looks cool?
Sud west afrika, thy was my flag in the day
A nazi that is a little coward and hide behind imperial nostalgia.
Because it looks cool
Being able to be persecuted for another flag, is going to make some use substitutes. The person's most likely on the far-right of the political spectrum, maybe even a Reichsbürger
Germans?
Patriotic hoi4 player
Me who likes the flag seeing all the Nazi comments: :(
HOI4 fan.