Last modified: 2009-11-21 by jarig bakker
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The flags of the Bavarian Bezirke are based on Linder 1997. He shows six of them as 'normal' horizontal flags, only the one of Oberbayern as a vertical flag. (...) Regarding the other Bezirke [apart from Oberbayern], I don't know [whether they use vertical or horizontal flags or both]. I asked Dieter Linder and he told me, that he reconstructed the flags according to the descriptions (usually nothing more than "divided red-white, bearing the arms" or the like). He does not have photos of these flags, as they are rarely seen. They only show up occasionally on the buildings of the Bezirk (e.g. on the occasion of an election of a new district president); they are also used, when the Bezirke gather once in a year.
There are not many examples of these flags available, so that they have
to bring their own flag for this assembly. Dieter Linder tried for several
years to get photos of this assembly showing the flags, without success
up to now. The Bezirke themselves were not able or willing to provide
photos of their flags. I personally assume that most or even all of the
Bezirke
use vertical flags with the arms slightly shifted to the top of the flag.
This is the normal form of city or municipal flag here in Bavaria. Most
official authorities (e.g. the Bavarian ministries) use vertical flags
(German and Bavarian)
as their official flag on the building. So one could call that 'regular'
here in Bavaria.
Marcus Schmöger, 2 Feb 2001
But one can say, that nearly all municipal flags show two or three stripes,
always of equal width, and the municipal Arms may appear on them. The colours
of the stripes always must derive from the main colours of the Arms [livery
colours]. The heraldic rules are transferred
to the flags, i.e. the rule of no metal beside a colour. The only accepted
colours are white, yellow, red, green, blue and black. Some examples:
- Bamberg: red over white, deliberately
with or without the arms
- Bayreuth: black over white, always with
arms superimposed
- Garching bei München: green over white over red
- Garching an der Alz: arms granted 16 Jan 1957 and showing a silver
bridge with a silver cross on it, thus dividing horizontally a red over
blue field. The base shows blue waves. A flag is not known to me, but may
be presumed. Dieter Linder, 11 Jan 1999
- Landshut: white over red, the arms on
a white square in the head of the flag
- Nürnberg: red over white, presently without
the arms
- Passau: red over white
- Regensburg: red over white, with the superimposed
arms
No rule without exceptions:
- Augsburg: red over green over white, always
without the arms (a break of the heraldic colour rules)
- Schweinfurt has a traditional flag: white
eagle on blue background (a break of the stripe rule)
These guidelines had been provided by the state archives which have
to advise the municipalities before and during the adoption of the symbols.
Unfortunately the rule to use only striped flags causes a monotony of Bavarian
city flags. In other German states these strict rules do not apply at any
rate.
Dieter Linder, 18 Nov 1998
In Bavarian municipalities there is never a distinction between a civil flag and a state or service flag. When different variants exist, i.e. with arms and without arms, this follows a different pattern, which has basically two dimensions: a historical and an economical one.
Historically, most of the cities, towns and municipalities that adopted flags - only rarely they have flags already - just adopted the colours, and did not define the use of the arms on the flag. At least in the 1950's and 1960's it was much cheaper to just have striped flags without the arms. Later on it became more and more common to add the arms on the flag, basically for three reasons: firstly, it was affordable; secondly, other municipalities had done the same, so "our municipality has to have a flag decorated with the arms as well", and thirdly the "granting agencies" - first the Innenministerium, later the Bezirksregierungen - started to define the flag slightly more in detail.
This led to the unfortunate formulations of "sie kann mit aufgelegtem
Wappen geführt werden" or "sie soll mit aufgelegtem Wappen geführt
werden" or "sie muß mit aufgelegtem Wappen geführt werden" ("the
flag can/shall/must be used with the coat-of-arms"). Especially the "soll"
is not clearly differenced from "muß".
Marcus Schmöger, 14 Apr 2002
Most municipal coats-of-arms adopted in Bavaria in the 1950's were drawn
by Emil Werz. He had his distinct, ornate style including a quite unusual
kind of shield. This shield design included the white 'relief' shown on
several arms in my website - see for instance the Erding
County, Moosinning,
Forstern,
Taufkirchen,
Oberding,
Grünbach
and Grüntegernbach
arms. Municipalities followed different ways in adapting this shield to
the flag:
- Erding County itself uses a simple shield
(as has been recommended in more recent times)
- Forstern and Oberding
use the ornate shield, but colour this relief not in the original white,
but in the colour of the field (yellow or blue, respectively)
- Taufkirchen/Vils uses the ornate shield
without changes
- Moosinning uses a simple shield, but
adds the white stripe at the top.
This shows that neither the municipalities, nor the flag makers, are
usually aware of the fact that the artistical rendering of the coat-of-arms
is not the most important part of the coat-of-arms, but the blazoning.
Marcus Schmöger, 10 May 2002
The names of the municipalities (not so much cities, but a mix of small
towns and villages) contain a number of spelling mistakes, and some have
become renamed or incorporated into other municipalities. This is a list
of corrections/updates:
- Oberalting-Seefeld: now Seefeld
- Holzkirchen: ambiguous; there are two municipalities of this name
(in Oberbayern and Unterfranken,
respectively), and some villages that are part of larger municipalities,
but seeing as this list contains older, non-existent municipalities, they
might have been independent at the time when the list was written.
- Kammental: doesn't exist, maybe Kammeltal is meant?
- Kemnat: ambiguous, since there are many locations called Kemnat or
Kemnath in Bavaria. Only one of them is presently an independent municipality,
Kemnath in Tirschenreuth county.
- Oberstimm: now part of Manching
- Oberpfaffenhofen: now part of Weßling
- Schonau: does not exist. The correct name could be Schönau, or Schongau,
or maybe something else, I don't know.
Stefan Schwoon, 11 Feb 2002