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Current Use of Former States Flags (Lower Saxony, Germany)

Ehemalige Länderflaggen

Last modified: 2011-06-13 by german editorial team
Keywords: lower saxony | niedersachsen | hanover | hannover | brunswick | braunschweig | oldenburg | schaumburg-lippe | cross (red) |
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Current Use of Former States' Flags

The [historical] flags of Hannover (Land), Braunschweig [Brunswick], Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe are still used and official by virtue of the Lower-Saxon law about the coat of arms and the flag of the Land (Gesetz über Wappen, Flaggen und Siegel vom 13. Oktober 1952, GVBl. S. 169).

Pascal Vagnat, 22 April 1998

According to the Law on Coats-of-Arms, Flags and Seals of 13th October 1952 (paragraph § 9):

  1. The federal flag and the flag of the Land shall be displayed when flags have to be displayed on official buildings. The official buildings of the Land can also have with these last, in the territories of the former Länder of Hannover [Hanover], Oldenburg, Braunschweig [Brunswick] and Schaumburg-Lippe, the former flag of the territory. This is not valid for authorities' buildings, that are not competent for the whole territory of the Land of Lower Saxony.
  2. The territorial communities are allowed to have near the federal flag and the flag of the Land the flags of the former Länder, and as far as they have one, their own flag. (...)
In fact, only the flags of Brunswick, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe are most used, because in the former province of Hanover, there is little need of regional consciousness and a flag bound to it, since the province doesn't need anymore to mark its status in Prussia, and now forms the biggest part of Lower Saxony.

Pascal Vagnat (?)

The flags of the former Länder may be used on official buildings together with the flag of Lower Saxony and the German flag.

Marcus Schmöger, 22 September 2000

Santiago Dotor asked, "How are these former Länder called nowadays? Bezirke? Regionen?" There are no official names for these now. The Regierungsbezirke (districts) of Lower Saxony do not follow the borders of the old Länder. There are now four districts: Braunschweig [Brunswick], Lüneburg, Weser-Ems and Hannover [Hanover]. Formerly (probably up to the 1970s) it was even more complicated. The smallest of the former Länder was Schaumburg-Lippe; this was up to 1977 simply a Landkreis (county).

Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2000

Brunswick

Braunschweig

[Brunswick (Lower Saxony, Germany)] 3:5
by Željko Heimer and Marcus Schmöger

There are no proper regulations on the colour shades of this flag, as there are no detailed regulations on colour shades in any German flag. So there is no official colour shade. I made my GIF according to the image in Schurdel 1995. I used dark yellow [Y+] because this is the usual darker yellow ("gold") used in most German flags, be it the federal flag, the Lower Saxony flag or several others. For the blue I used dark blue [B+], because the image in Schurdel 1995 shows this darker blue.

Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2000

Hanover

Hannover

[Hanover (Lower Saxony, Germany)] 3:5
by Željko Heimer and Marcus Schmöger

The colours of the [Prussian] province adopted in 1887 were the same as the ones of the former kingdom: yellow over white. This flag can still be seen today, but is rarely used.

Pascal Vagnat, 9 September 1996

There are no proper regulations on the colour shades of this flag, so there is no official colour shade. I made my GIF according to the image in Schurdel 1995. I used dark yellow [Y+] because this is the usual darker yellow ("gold") used in most German flags.

Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2000

Oldenburg

[Oldenburg (Lower Saxony, Germany)] 3:5
by Marcus Schmöger

According to the Bekanntmachung des Staatsministeriums für den Freistaat Oldenburg betreffend das Führen von Flaggen vom 3. Oktober 1919 ("Declaration of the State Ministry of the Republic of Oldenburg regarding the Use of Flags of 3rd October 1919") the width of the red cross is a fourth of the flag width. There are no proper regulations on the colour shades of this flag, so there is no official colour shade. I made my GIF according to the image in Schurdel 1995. The image for Oldenburg shows a purplish blue (RGB 51:0:153) in Schurdel 1995.

Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2000

Schaumburg-Lippe

[Schaumburg-Lippe (Lower Saxony, Germany)] 3:5
by Željko Heimer and Marcus Schmöger

There are no proper regulations on the colour shades of this flag, so there is no official colour shade. I made my GIF according to the image in Schurdel 1995. For the blue I used dark blue [B+], because the image in Schurdel 1995 shows this darker blue.

Marcus Schmöger, 6 October 2000