Territorial Association of (Lower) Silesia and Upper Silesia (Germany)

Landsmannschaft Schlesien -Nieder- und Oberschlesien e.V.

Last modified: 2004-11-27 by santiago dotor
Keywords: territorial association of (lower) silesia and upper silesia | landsmannschaft schlesien -nieder- und oberschlesien e.v. | silesia | schlesien | oberschlesien | vertriebene | refugees | coat of arms (eagle: black) |
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9:4 by Jens Pattke

• Description

See also:

• Territorial Association of the Upper Silesians (Landsmannschaft der Oberschlesier e.V.)
• Lower Silesia Official Flag 1920-1935 (doubtful) (Prussia, Germany)
• Federation of Expellees (Bund der Vertriebenen, BdV, Germany)
• Germany

Other sites:

• Bund der Vertriebenen website (German text only) showing coats-of-arms of all the regional associations
• Schlesien / Silesia at the Genealogy.Net website

Jens Pattke reported in the German vexillology mailing list about the flag of one of the Landsmannschaften —territorial or country associations— of Vertriebene —refugees from former German territories or formerly German-inhabited regions in Eastern Europe—. He explained that the Silesians are a very active group. Originally there was a single group representing all the Silesians, from which the Upper Silesians separated in 1950 on the grounds of different cultural heritage.

As flag they use their traditional Landesfarben with the coat-of-arms. The Landesfarben derive from the arms. The colours of Lower Silesia are white and yellow, since black and yellow —the main colours on the arms— would have been (formerly) mistaken with the Hapsburg colours of Austria. The arms show the 13th century eagle of the Dukes of Silesia, which was defaced with a white Kleeblattspange —crescent with trefoil ends— to make it different from that of the (then) Dukes of Austria.

Santiago Dotor, 13 July 2001