Last modified: 2009-07-26 by jarig bakker
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![[Franconia, flag with coat-of-arms (Bavaria, Germany)]](../images/d/de-by-fk.gif)
image by Marcus Schmöger
The three northern Bezirke [districts] of Bavaria
(Mittelfranken, Oberfranken
and Unterfranken) have their own history, distinct
from southern Bavaria, and thus some kind of regional identity as Franken
(Franconia). Many of the people there do not like the quite centralistic
Bavarian
government in Munich, some of them even want their own Bundesland
Franken ['Federal State of Franconia'], see for example this
website.
Marcus Schmöger, 28 January 2001
"Communities are allowed exceptionally to show the white-red flag of
Franconia on the day of Franconia at 1st July, on their town hall, beside
the Bavarian white-blue flag", said Bavarian minister for inner affairs
Günther Beckstein. "Normally it is not allowed, because the Franconian
flag is not an official state flag."
Source: Newspaper Münchner Merkur.
(Beckstein is Franconian and future prime minister in-spe of Bavaria.)
J. Patrick Fischer, 6 Jun 2007
Since 2006 on the first Sunday after 2 July every year Franconia (the
northern part of Bavaria) celebrates the "Tag der Franken" (Day of the
Franconians), see Wikipedia.
This is mainly to show the fact, that historically Franconia has been a
late addition (1806) to Bavaria and that culturally and linguistically
there are a lot of differences between the Bavarians proper (Altbayern
= Old Bavarians) and the Franconians. There is a quite active and vociferous
minority in Franconia that wants more rights in (perceivedly Munich-centred)
Bavaria, decentralization or even their own state in the Federal Republic
("Bundesland Franken").
On 5 July 2009, there was the "Tag der Franken" of this year, celebrated
in the open-air museum at Bad Windsheim, that I visited for vexillological
purposes.
There were quite a number of cultural expositions and events showing
aspects of Franconian culture and history. However, one major part was
to show the connections between Franconian towns/municipalities and twinned
towns/municipalities in foreign countries, belonging to the European Union.
So every country of the European Union had some space for display, a few
of them together with other countries close-by, though, e.g. the Baltic
countries with Finland, or Greece with Cyprus.
The buildings and stands were richly decorated with paper flags of
the respective nation. Other flags displayed were several regional or municipal
flags.
And of course there were quite a number of different versions of the
(unofficial) Franconian flag.
Marcus E.V. Schmöger, 7 Jul 2009
The flag depicted
in this website as flag
for Franconia you can see also quite frequently on other websites, e.g.
this
website or this website.
This flag has been in use unofficially for some 10-15 years, even if in
the South Bavarian media it is not frequently seen. It shows a typical
pattern for a German flag: horizontally striped red over white with the
arms in the center. The colours derive from the arms. The arms show the
saw-tooth
that has been one of the symbols of the Hochstift Würzburg (since 1410)
and later on became a symbol commonly associated with the whole Franconia.
As there was no political entity called Franconia in medieval times, but
a lot of small territories, there had never been an actual historical coat-of-arms
for Franconia. However the saw-tooth is the symbol for Franconia
in the Bavarian coat-of-arms as well as in
the coats-of-arms of the Bezirke Mittelfranken, Oberfranken and
Unterfranken. These three Bezirke also show flags of red-white or white-red.
Marcus Schmöger, 28 January 2001
![[Franconia, banner-of-arms (Bavaria, Germany)]](../images/d/de-by2fk.gif)
image by Marcus Schmöger
The flag of Franconia is a banner of the arms of the region, as they
appear within the arms of Bavaria. They are
nicknamed the Franconian rake. The teeth of the rake are usually
horizontal. The flag has no official status since there is no autonomous
region of Franconia. (...) The flag is often seen during local festivities.
Pascal Vagnat, 24 April 2000
During a short stay in Bavaria, I saw the flag of Franconia in the town
of Solnhofen (together with municipal and Bavarian state flags). All three
flags were hoisted vertically, the Franconia regional flag being Bahrain-like,
red over white, with three white triangles.
Jan Zrzavy, 11 June 2000
Another unofficial flag for Franconia can be seen at this
website. This seems to be a banner-of-arms, however rotated 90 degrees.
This would certainly be used as vertical flag as well as horizontal flag.
Marcus Schmöger, 28 January 2001
![[Franconia hanging flag]](../images/d/de-by3fk.gif)
image by Marcus Schmöger, 12 Jul 2002
In the Süddeutsche Zeitung of 8 July 2002 (p. 47) there was a foto of
a meeting of the Frankenbund (Franconians' Association) showing
a variant of the (unofficial) Franconian flag as a "Banner" (hanging flag).
Marcus Schmöger, 12 Jul 2002
Two flags are raised on the imperial castle of Nürnberg, the German black-red-gold and the Bavarian white-blue. But Nürnberg is the biggest city of Franconia. The Franconians are a German tribe, which is living in northern Bavaria and is underlining its difference from the Bavarian tribe. In 19th century Franconia became part of the Bavaria.
The SPD in the city council of Nürnberg asked to raise the Franconian
red-white-flag..The president of the Franconian Union, Joachim Kalb, called
the current
situation as "circumstances like in colonial times".
The Minister explained, there is no free pole for the Franconian flag on the castle. The Edict request the other flags. Anyhow, the minister of finance is responsible for the flags on the castle.
The mayor of Nürnberg is now thinking about raising the Franconian flag
on a tower, which is belonging to the city.
Source: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28th August 2008.
J. Patrick Fischer, 9 Nov 2008
![[Mespelbrunn Castle flag]](../images/d/de_mespc.gif)
image by Marcus Schmöger, 6 Feb 2009
I recently came across a photograph of a rather mysterious flag [1],
hanging at the famous water castle Mespelbrunn in Franconia [2]. I first
thought that it might be a municipal flag, as it shows the general pattern
of Bavarian municipal flag: two stripes, with arms, hanging flag. However,
neither the county nor the municipal flag are similar.
The photograph itself was not clear enough to make out the details
of the arms; the stripes looked like yellow and blue.
Then I searched on the internet for images of the castle, with the
flag. I found quite a number of photographs [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10], and from
these I could identify the arms as the one of the family owning the castle
(Grafen von Ingelheim genannt Echter von und zu Mespelbrunn), quartering
the coats-of-arms of Ingelheim (Sable, a cross chequy of Or and Gules)
and Echter (Azure, a bend Argent charged with three annulets Azure). The
flag stripes are actually yellow-black, most probably derived from two
of the colours in the Ingelheim arms.
I made a crude drawing of the flag, using the arms on the castle website
[11].
------
A few general remarks:
1. My experience with this shows that one has to be very careful in
assessing the colours of a flag from a photograph. The photograph in the
newspaper (and several photos on the internet) showed the darker stripe
clearly as blue, whereas in fact it is black.
2. There are really many photographs of the castle, but usually they
show either a general view of the castle or some internal detail. None
of the photographers (at flickr.com at least) really cared for the flag
and took a good picture of the flag. We may conclude that flags go largely
unrecognized and they are photographed only by chance.
3. It is not uncommon, that castles, especially those still in private
ownership, do fly flags. However, these are usually distinguishable as
private/family flag, either by being banners-of-arms or by some other remarkable
feature. This flag, however, clearly evoked the association "municipal
flag".
Sources:
[1] Süddeutsche Zeitung 22 January 2009, p. 42
[2] http://www.schloss-mespelbrunn.de
[3] http://flickr.com/photos/mbell1975/2287125292/
[4] http://flickr.com/photos/tpe1002/1338745466/
[5] http://flickr.com/photos/tpe1002/1337814345/
[6] http://flickr.com/photos/purplegecko/345977084/
[7] http://flickr.com/photos/artrock2006/1890509072/
[8] http://flickr.com/photos/11914355@N03/1463205441/
[9] http://flickr.com/photos/superbecks/231320985/
[10] http://flickr.com/photos/22048137@N06/3199591807/
[11] http://www.schloss-mespelbrunn.de/images/wappen.jpg
Marcus Schmöger, 6 Feb 2009
