Last modified: 2005-11-05 by santiago dotor
Keywords: baden-württemberg | county | landkreis | municipality | gemeinde |
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Civic flags in Baden-Württemberg are strictly regulated. The regulations state that they may consist of two stripes only and the colours of the stripes must be derived from the arms. Authorities are allowed to use the flag with the arms; individuals may only use the simple flag. I made the variants with the arms since they offer at least something of interest. The vertically hanging variety seems to be preferred, at least that was the case for all the county flags I have seen so far.
According to Erich Dieter Linder, Die Flaggen deutscher Landkreise (Flags of German counties), in Der Flaggenkurier no. 2, 1996, pp. 4-10, county flags were introduced only as late as 1987. After that, most counties adopted flags relatively quickly in the two or three years that followed.
Stefan Schwoon, 7 February 2001
Falko Schmidt sent me the descriptions for the [remaining] county flags of Baden-Württemberg so I could draw them. His sources were the official flag grants and in some cases information obtained from the county office (Landratsamt). So actually it is Falko who should be credited for all the research, I merely turned his results into GIFs.
Baden-Württemberg occupies the southwest of Germany. It is divided into four districts (Regierungsbezirke) and 35 counties (Kreise). The current counties are the result of the municipal reform in 1973. Previously there were 63 counties. The counties were not allowed to have their own flags prior to 1987 (which means that the old counties did not have any). In the years following 1987 most counties adopted flags, only two of them do not have a flag today.
The form of the flags are very strictly regulated. Like other municipal flags in Baden-Württemberg [i.e. 'historical' flags that were in use before these rules came into effect], county flags consist of two equal stripes, the colours must be taken from the coat of arms of the county. There are two types of flags, generic flags and service flags (Dienstflaggen). The service flags bear the coat of arms, usually in the upper part of the flag, and may be used by the county authorities alone. The flags I made are of the service flag type, the generic versions are the same, they just don't have the arms. The images for the arms are derived from the arms shown at Ralf Hartemink's International Civic Arms website, mostly they are from Stadler 1964-1972 and H. Bardua, Die Kreis- und Gemeindewappen im Regierungsbezirk Stuttgart (County and Municipal Arms in the Stuttgart District), Theiss, Stuttgart, 1987.
Like the Thuringian counties, the counties in Baden-Württemberg often show the symbols of former territories in their arms. Mostly these are the six territories represented on top of the greater coat of arms of Baden-Württemberg. From dexter to sinister (heraldic right to left) these are:
Stefan Schwoon, 18 March 2001
I seriously doubt that county flags without arms have ever existed. At least in Bavaria I can say that the flag of a county would be never used by citizens. Not because it would be strictly forbidden, but because the county level has no attractive for the people, it is just an administration. Nobody has emotional ties to the county, as one has perhaps to his/her town/city or municipality. So people in some municipalities would use the municipal flag, but never the county flag. Furthermore nobody knows the county flag, anyway!
Marcus Schmöger, 8 November 2001
There are nine county-free cities (kreisfreie Städte) in Baden-Württemberg. I have got flag images for four of them —Baden-Baden, Freiburg, Stuttgart and Ulm— the first three of which I drew from scratch after the images at the Flag Data Bank website. For the other county-free cities in that state I have no images, just descriptions from Stadler 1964-1971 (to be treated with a bit of caution).
Stefan Schwoon, 3-4 March 2001
Editor's note: read the explanation about Stadler 1964-1971 in introduction to German civic flags.