Last modified: 2020-07-26 by pete loeser
Keywords: third reich | nationalsocialist | disc (white) | eagle (black) | coastal service flags |
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![[State Flag and Ensign 1933-1935 (Germany)]](../images/d/de~s1933.gif)
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Image by Santiago Dotor and Dieter Linder
Flag adopted 1933, abolished 31 October 1935
The black-white-red with a slightly increased circular white area with the national eagle displayed, thus very similar to the Imperial Foreign Office State Flag, except for the form of the eagle. This flag basically replaced both the previous state flag and state ensign and was in use 1933 to 1935.
Norman Martin, 1998
(The) German state flag and ensign introduced in 1933 [was] black-white-red with circular white cutout, slightly off-centred to the hoist, therein the German eagle.
Ralf Stelter, 7 February 2001
This was the Reichsdienstflagge, adopted 22 April 1933 and replaced by
the swastika type in 1935. I have a black and white photocopy of it from the 1934 German Ministry of Interior publication on flags which I got from Dieter Linder a couple of years ago. The eagle seems to me extremely close or identical to that of the 1921 and current Presidential standard, similar to the 1933 presidential standard, which has one feather more, even though adopted by the same decree and both are referred to as the Reichsadler (but with the adjective schwebend added in the case of the presidential eagle.) It is quite different both from the eagle of the 1921 Dienstflaggen [service flags and ensigns] and any of the coats of arms.
Norman Martin, 7 and 8 February 2001
For the above image I have assumed that the white disc had a diameter 5/9ths of the hoist (as in the Imperial state ensign) and that the off-centering is 1/20th of the length.
Santiago Dotor, 9 February 2001
These local Reich Service flags (Seedienstflaggen) were used on public administrative buildings and vessels at sea for the coastal areas controlled by the emerging Third Reich from about 1933 to 1935, when they were all replaced by the Reichsdienstflagge in 1935.
Text from Historical Flags of Our Ancestors, 26 May 2011
It might be that such flags existed for all the sea going cities of old, but that would exclude Emden, which somehow had gotten to be part of the most easterly part of Germany, Prussia, by this time. If it turns out that these "State Sea Service Flags" were adopted locally, that explains why they were adopted against the trend of centralisation.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 26 May 2011
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Image by Fornax
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Image by Fornax
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Image by Fornax
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Image by Fornax
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Image by Fornax
According to the German Vexillological Association the eagle emblems were shaped
like shown in my versions, but there very well could have been "variants" of the eagle. (Note: See the Hamburg Coastal Sea Service Flag (variant) 1933/34–1935 - Seedienstflagge der Küstenländer Hamburg below.) My Source was: Flaggenkurier No. 16 (2002), color plate no. 366. The flag was used from 1934 to 1935.
Fornax, 11 September 2011
A. Relevant sources/regulations for the Seedienstflagge:
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Image by Fornax
I have consulted an historical atlas and found out that the only coastal states after 1871 had been Oldenburg, the hansa cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck and Mecklenburg. The rest of the coast was Prussian territory, therefore any other coastal city was indeed excluded from using a local Seedienstflagge.
The Seedienstflagge might be a so-called "Reservatsrecht" (Reserve legal), an unofficial name, but well-known, that had been granted to certain German states after the unification of 1871 Those rights mainly had been granted to the bigger Southern Kingdoms in Germany and usually coped with mail, telegraph and railway services.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 30 May 2011
With the rather small number of flags we originally knew about, I assumed they were related to the German cities. If we've now reached the conclusion that there are six such flags that distinction no longer matters, as together they would represent the entire German sea coast anyway. But it might, of course, be that these flags were the successors of flags used in the separate cities. At some point after the creation of a German nation state, these local service flags would then have taken a form derived from a newly adopted reich service flag.
You can't research this by using the term, unless we decide on a single translation for Seedienstflagge, which might explain the lack of quick reactions. But if the number of states is limited to 6, we have:
To answer your question, it's fairly sure. The states having special "Seedienstflaggen" after 1871 were (ordered from West to East): Oldenburg, Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, Mecklenburg (-Schwerin). Although Mecklenburg-Strelitz had a small access to Lübeck Bay at Dassow (without any important harbour, however). These states had own "Seedienstflaggen." All the rest of the coast line belonged to Prussia, which also had an own "Seedienstflagge," however, it was completely different from Reichsseedienstflagge.
The pattern of 1933 was introduced in the Reich in order to abolish black-red-golden from the sheets. These colours had been mocked by German conservatives as "gymnasticsflag" (Turnerflagge). As HOOG in "Hamburgs Verfassung" mentions both former patterns in Hamburg, but not the 1933 pattern, it could be that pattern might have been proposed for Hamburg, but without execution. As long as I have no proof, I prefer to consider that image as a proposal (or non-existing).
Since all those flags had not been introduced before 1893, I presume that they were not part of the "Reservatrechte" according to the Constitution of 1871.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 3 June 2011
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Canton Detail
Images by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 11 August 2011
I have discovered a variant of the Seedienstflagge Hamburg (1933/34–1935) at the Hamburg Museum. The ratio is approximately 3:5. It is a black over white over dark red horizontal tricolour. Slightly shifted to the hoist a white oval (not a disc) is exceeding onto the other stripes. The oval contains a black eagle armed and tongued dark red. In the canton is a red square with a white bordure. Within the square is the pattern of the Admiralty flag. The biggest surprise is, that it is the present pattern. There exist two flags in the museum’s magazine. Source: photo taken from filing card no. 1987, 116a+b of Hamburgmuseum. At least the existence of that flag has been proven now. But I didn’t yet find the legislation. The flag in the museum differs in details from the images within written sources as follows:
I meanwhile contacted the flagmaker in Bonn. All books with the patterns of flags were gone, lost because of Allied bombing attacks somewhere between 1939 and 1945. The filing card says explicitely, that both flags were "new/unused." They had been made of synthetic fibre, which was common for flags to be used at sea.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 22 August 2011