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Kingdom of Bulgaria, 1944-1946

by Željko Heimer

Changes during 1937-1944
Bulgarian flag of 1944
Bulgarian Communist Party

See also:

Changes during 1937-1944

In 1937 the flag for the Commander of a Division was introduced in January 1937. And soon after it, on 19 December 1937 the flags for several main naval units were ceremoniously handed out (these would be called in English "colours"). I report a summary from Ivanov (1998) pp. 146-147:

These were given by the King Boris III himself to the Naval Academy, Maritime Police Service and Danube Police Service. (I believe that these are military police services rather then anything else, but it is hard to tell for me.) In the description of the ceremony, it is mentioned that the Minister of the Army, Major General Lukov, was granted 17 gun salutes, in comparison to the Commander of a Division who was due to 13. The flag of the Naval Academy (that was in Sozopol) is now preserved in the National Military History Museum (Natsionalni voennoistoricheski muzei, NVIM, presumably in Sophia). It is not pictured nor described further in Ivanov (1998).

With the end of the World War II and the change of the political system on 9. September 1944 the old flags (entire sets of colours, ensigns, jacks, pennants etc.) became obsolete. It seems that the commanders had considerable autonomy in this respect, and that they have been choosing designs on a whim. However it may seem a long time, it was indeed exactly in the navy that the new flags were established (as opposed to army and air force that followed later on). It was on 30 May 1955 that the commander in chief of the navy issued an order (numbered No. I-M-131) establishing the ensign, jack, pennants and personal flags in the navy with validity on 1 July 1949.

Ivanov (1998) therefore is silent on the flags used in the period 1944-1949. It seems they were not uniform and they were not standardised in any way. Probably one of the designs that might have been in use might be that which I reported from a Croatian atlas issued in 1955 (see above), and probably other variations have been used. One report of the 1949 ensign in use in the period 1944-1949 seems to be wrong - the ensign with the red star below the lion was not adopted until 1949 and used until 1955. However, surely, there may have been examples of this ensign being used before its official establishment in 1949 (after all, the official establishment might have been only the offici