Last modified: 2011-06-17 by andrew weeks
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Shipmate Flagchart : http://www.flagchart.net
adopted 17 October 1961
Our honourable correspondents in Gelderland informed us that on 1 January
2005 the municipality of Aalten had absorbed the municipality of Dinxperlo
to form the new municipality of Aalten, adding:
"There is no news about the adoption of a new flag and arms. "
According to "De Gelderlander", 29 September 2008, the Municipal Council
of Aalten has adopted a coat of arms and should require a flag from the
Higher Council of Nobility (Hoge Raad van Adel), "based on the colours
and charges of the new coat of arms". The new flag and arms could be introduced
on 1 January 2009.
http://www.gelderlander.nl/voorpagina/achterhoek/3786269/Na-wapen-en-naam-volgt-vlag.ece
The article recalls that, before the merging, Aalten used a horizontally divided white-green, while Dinxperlo used a horizontally divided yellow-blue flag with the coat of arms in the middle.
The article describes the coat of arms of Dinxperlo (shown but not described
on the FOTW website) as:
"A blue field with Lady Justice and a black field with two crossed
sword",
therefore "Per fess, 1. Azure a Lady Justice proper, 2. Sable two swords
argent crossed per saltire."
As said on the FOTW website, a "ding" was the place where justice was
administrated.
According to the International
Civic Heraldry website, the Higher Council of Nobility suggested to
use two shields, one with the German goddess of justice Themis instead
of Lady Justice, and the other with the swords, but the municipality prefered
to stack all the symbols in ther same shield and to keep Lady Justice.
The arms were granted on 28 July 1897 as "Doorsneden : I in lazuur het
ten halve lijve uitkomende beeld der Justitia, gelaat, handen en haren
van natuurlijke kleur, gekleed in een geschubt pantser van zilver, met
een geciseleerde zilveren helm op het hoofd, in de rechterhand een zwaard
van zilver met de punt omhoog en in de linker een weegschaal van goud houdende,
II in sabel 2 schuinkruiselings geplaatste zwaarden van zilver, elk gedeeltelijk
omstrengeld door een strik van natuurlijke kleur met afhangende uiteinden."
The coat of arms of Aalten is shown on the municipal website as a white shield with a green tree standing on a green terrace, which seems to be equivalent to the coat of arms granted on 7 October 1818 and "portraying" a famous local linden tree. However, the International Civic Heraldry website says that the arms were granted on 3 October 1815 as "Van zilver beladen met een groenen boom, staande op een grond van hetzelfde." (Argent a tree vert on a terrace of the same), while older arms already used the linden tree at least since 1795.
Were the flag of Aalten be derived from the coat of arms, the inhabitants
of Dinxperlo and other Keupers would probably complain that their identity
has been lost in the new flag.
Ivan Sache, 24 Oct 2008
![[Aalten old flag]](../images/n/nl-ge_aa.gif)
image by Jarig Bakker, 23 May 2005
According to "Wie, Wat, Waar? 1940", an annual published by the
Rotterdamsch Nieuwsblad in Nov. 1939, the flag of Aalten was green over
white.
The colors were derived from the municipal arms, which is: argent a
tree vert on a base of the same.
It is assumed that this tree is an old lindentree at the junction of
the roads Aalten-Zelhem and Aalten-Lichtenvoorde. This tree was replaced
in the beginning of the 19th century by a new one, which can still be admired
today.
Jarig Bakker, 23 May 2005
![[Aalten Coat of Arms]](../images/n/nl-ge)aa.gif)
image by Jarig Bakker, 23 May 2005
Arms: argent a tree vert on a base of the same.