When the AfD MPs asked what exactly the problem was, given that the national flag flies over every Bundestag building, the officers were evasive. They said the matter would have to be clarified. In the end, they withdrew without taking further action.

A Symbol Under Suspicion

Admittedly, the episode is bizarre. Naturally, one wonders whether the police would have intervened had another opposition party waved the German flag, such as the Left Party or the Greens. The trouble is that neither does, which brings us back to the point.

Comparable scenes would be almost inconceivable in any other European country. No police force would attempt to stop French, British, Dutch or Slovak MPs from waving their respective national flags from their offices. It could happen only in Germany.

The question remains: why? What exactly is the problem? Or was the incident at the Bundestag office building merely an aberration?

The latter must be ruled out. One moment from the night of the 2013 federal election captures the persistent unease with which even Germany’s political establishment regards the national colors. It was 22 September. Pollsters had just projected a clear victory for the incumbent chancellor, Angela Merkel, with 41.5% of the vote, a result that would be unimaginable today.

Although the Free Democratic Party (FDP), her existing coalition partner, was in danger of falling below the 5% threshold, as it later did, the mood at CDU headquarters was jubilant. Merkel stood on stage as her supporters celebrated her victory. But when the party’s then secretary general, Hermann Gröhe, began waving a small German flag, the chancellor herself took it from him and, looking mildly irritated, passed it down the line to have the offending item removed from the stage.

Such a moment, too, could occur only in Germany. No one can imagine a French president having the tricolor removed from an election-night stage. The same would be unthinkable in Spain, Denmark, Poland or Hungary. Only in Germany can a head of government take exception to the country’s foremost national symbol.

The Revolutionary Colors

Why is that? After all, Germans are considerably more relaxed about their national colors during football tournaments. The flag is also a common sight in everyday life. It flies from all four towers of the Reichstag in Berlin, with another exceptionally large one positioned at an angle in front of the main entrance.

To understand this complicated relationship, one must turn to history. The best place to begin is with a simple question: why are Germany’s colors black, red and gold?

Black, red and gold appeared relatively early in the history of the German Reich. The explanation is straightforward: the imperial coat of arms featured a black eagle on a gold background. The eagle’s beak and talons were later depicted in red.

There is, however, no clear connection between medieval heraldry and the modern German flag. Its colors derive instead from the uniforms worn by student volunteer corps during the Napoleonic Wars. They were black, with red facings and gold buttons.

After the Wars of Liberation, student fraternities adopted the colors. They first appeared as symbols of republicanism, democracy and freedom in 1832, when citizens and students gathered at Hambach Castle to protest against the Restoration order and demand civil rights and German unity, waving black, red and gold tricolors.

When the first freely elected parliament representing all of Germany assembled in Frankfurt am Main during the March revolutions of 1848, it declared black, red and gold the federal colors and adopted the tricolor as the German national flag. The colors disappeared again after the revolution was suppressed.

When the German Empire was founded in 1871, it chose not the revolutionary black, red and gold as its imperial colors but black, white and red. Black and white were the traditional colors of Prussia, derived from those of the Teutonic Order, which had conquered large parts of the Baltic region and Central Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Red, meanwhile, came from the coats of arms of numerous imperial cities in which the color featured prominently.

On 11 August 1919, the Weimar National Assembly declared black, red and gold the national colors. The political right detested the republican colors because they represented everything it opposed. The National Socialists therefore abolished them immediately after taking power. In May 1949, the constituent assembly once again declared black, red and gold the national colors under Article 22 of the Basic Law.

The flag itself was controversial during the postwar reordering of Germany. Even within the CDU, not everyone wanted to revive the tricolor of the Weimar Republic. Many instead favored a design resembling the flags of the Scandinavian countries, perhaps a yellow cross edged in black on a red background, or the so-called Wirmer flag, consisting of a black cross edged in yellow on a red field. Neither proposal prevailed.

A Burdened Inheritance

Surveys conducted since 1949 show that black, red and gold was initially met with little enthusiasm. Germans remained uneasy about the colors. In the early years of the Federal Republic, a clear majority preferred the black, white and red of the German Empire. Only gradually did the population grow accustomed to black, red and gold.

The German flag is now accepted and largely uncontested, partly because even the German political right invokes the traditions of 1848. Yet Germany remains uneasy with every form of national symbolism, whether the flag or the anthem. That is partly a consequence of German history and partly the result of the political left’s long-standing tendency to associate any expression of patriotism with National Socialism.

Beyond such attempts at political influence, however, growing prosperity also fostered a post-national mentality, at least in West Germany.

In the years immediately before reunification, West Germans defined themselves as Europeans, but also through their prosperity, international outlook, foreign holidays, experience abroad and cosmopolitanism. German virtues such as diligence, order and discipline were considered provincial and outdated. People simply no longer wanted to be German. The national colors seemed stale and antiquated.

Patriotism in Team Colors

That changed only with the 2006 football World Cup in Germany, the so-called summer fairy tale. Suddenly, the national colors were flying everywhere in Germany’s streets and squares. But anyone who mistook this celebration of black, red and gold for a new patriotism, let alone a political statement, was soon disappointed.

They were simply team colors, much like Bayern Munich’s red, Schalke’s blue or Borussia Mönchengladbach’s green. Black, red and gold became a fan accessory brought out whenever a European Championship or World Cup came around.

And that is why the political use of the national flag provokes such bewilderment and resistance. Neither a Bundestag office nor an election-night party is a football stadium. Hence the interventions by the chancellor and the Bundestag president. Nor will the AfD change this mentality.

After all, trying to cultivate a relaxed relationship with national symbols can itself become a rather strained exercise. But black, red and yellow work very well as party colors, as Germany is once again demonstrating. Perhaps that is not even the worst way for a country to make peace with itself and its history.