Standard of the Leader and National Chancellor 1935-1945 (Third Reich, Germany)

Standarte des Führers und Reichskanzlers, Adolf Hitler

Last modified: 2005-04-09 by santiago dotor
Keywords: third reich | nationalsocialist | hitler: adolf | fuehrer | disc (white) | swastika | cross: swastika (black) | eagles: 4 (gold) | garland | bordure (faceted) |
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1:1
by Jaume Ollé modified by Yasuo Ohfuji

• Description

See also:

• Introduction to Third Reich Flags
• Flags used 15th September 1935 - 8th May 1945
• National Socialist German Worker's Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / NSDAP / Nazi Party)
• Germany

Personal flag of Hitler. A red square flag with a central white disk. Just inside the disk a gold oak-leaf garland, inside of which a black-white bordered upright black swastika reaching the garland. In the upper hoist and lower fly a Nazi Party type eagle, in the other two corners a Nazi National Eagle, all in gold and with the tops of the heads pointed towards the center of the flag. Illustrated in Flaggenbuch 1939, plate I and Davis 1975, p. 82. Replaced the Presidential Standard. Davis 1975 says that after Hitler assumed the position of Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces [in 1938], this was called Standarte des Führers und Obersten Befehlshaber der Wehrmacht, but Flaggenbuch 1939 and all the miscellaneous manuals etc. I picked up in 1945 do not agree.

Norman Martin, December 1997

In 1938 Hitler assumed the powers of the War Minister after dismissing Field Marshal von Blomberg from that post and reorganizing the Ministry into the High Command of the Armed Forces — Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or OKW. In 1941 Hitler made himself Commander-in-Chief of the Army, in the wake of the Soviet winter counteroffensive which resulted, among other things, in the dismissal of the previous Commander-in-Chief, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch. Thus the Commander-in-Chief of the Army flag became redundant at that time — though technically, I suppose, Hitler would have been entitled to use it.

Tom Gregg, 18 December 1997

A report was received that Hitler's standard was changed around 1940. The eagles were reported to be reversed compared with the earlier pattern and the white disk removed. I