mobile View, to the German Version tap the flag
Single-coloured red flags were emblems of the following states: Hamburg, Maldive Islands, Morocco, Spanish Morocco, Oman, Zansibar, Tripolitania, Fujairah, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Ras al-Chaima, Sharjah, Umm al-Quwain, Daba, Kalba, Quatar, Kedah, Kokand, Hungary, Hedjas, Kuwait
Single-coloured flags have a long tradition and they are widespread, from the coasts of Arabia to Zanzibar to the Maldives. It is considered as one of the colors of Islam. All Islamic dynasties that refer to the origin of the Alawites (also called Alides, descendants of Ali) have or had red flags (e.g. still Morocco today, formerly also in North Yemen), or also the Arab Emirates and Oman. Red is also the color of Omar, the second caliph.
Single-coloured red flags can have very different meanings that go far beyond the topic of state or national flags:
• Signal flag B of the flag alphabet
• The red flag on the beach warns: Be careful! Absolute bathing ban!
• On the military firing range, the red flag signals that live ammunition is being used.
• In the 17th century, the unadorned, red flag could function as the colonel's flag for a regiment on foot.
• Pirates demanded the unconditional removal of the flag of the ship they intended to hijack with the red flag they raised (see "Pirate flags" - "Joli Rouges").
• Just as on land the red flag announced that blood would flow. Be it that the
besiegers signaled it to the besieged, but also vice versa! The fight will be
waged to the last drop of blood, there will be no mercy.
• In earlier centuries, the authorities signaled the right to blood jurisdiction
by showing a plain red flag.
• Just as vice versa (not only) the French revolutionaries from 1789 demanded
"blood justice" (at least according to J.P. Marat) to settle accounts with the
nobility and claimed the red flag for themselves.
• In the age of the "lansquenets" gathered under the red "blood flag", usually
carried by an ensign, the so-called lost heap, also known as the lost gang. They
were double mercenaries, i.e. they received a multiple of the pay and were e.g.
exempt from security guards. The task of this heap was to strike an alley as a
storm troop through the enemy lines with large "two-handers" (large swords to be
wielded with both hands), halberds and pikes at the beginning of a battle to
give the own own army a chance to break through. "They gave no mercy and did not
expect anything like that!", so a chronicler at the time.
• During the American Civil War (1861-1865) the red flag indicated the place of
the ambulatory first aid stations.
• In the Hindman Army Corps of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, the unadorned
red flags marked the location of the brigade commanders.
• The political, party-political, revolutionary, red flag – in addition to the already existing symbolism of blood, reckoning, no mercy – can also be traced back to the French Revolution, since its very radical followers, the so-called Jacobins, liked to wear the "Phrygian Hat", especially in one color: red, especially to frighten royalists, the nobility and the church. In ancient Rome the freed slave wore this cap on the first day of his freedom to show the public his new social status as a free, equal Roman citizen. And then it became the red Jacobin hat. In the 19th century the red color and flag very quickly became the symbol of the radical political left in Europe (and in the USA the color of the Republicans – until today). The simple, unadorned red flag was indispensable for demonstrations, rallies, marches by socialist, social democratic, marxist parties, associations and unions. Posters, leaflets, badges and armbands were also coloured in red. Not to forget the collective term for practically all partisans of the political left: "the Reds". The boundary between flag and banner was sometimes blurred when political slogans, appeals, demands, slogans on red banners were shown in – mostly white – large letters at relevant events. The name and location of the organization could be read on the flags of the respective local clubs. Practically all soviet republics from 1917 onwards initially used the simple red flag as a state, war and national flag. There were: soviet republics in Russia, Lithuania, Hungary, and Bavaria etc. The Red Army had advanced to Warsaw, in the German Empire raged the uprising of the Red (Ruhr) Army, and there was also temporarily "Soviet" governments (of communists and socialists) in Saxony and Thuringia. The communist world revolution then failed to materialize, however, and the hammer and sickle became the state symbol of the Soviet Union and its world-wide party political auxiliaries. They saw themselves as the "advance guard of the Red Army". As a result, social democrats and democratic socialists needed visual distinguishing features to distinguish themselves from Bolshevik totalitarianism at their events. That is why very often only a few exclusively red flags were shown, the majority showed – in raised letters – the name of the relevant organization. From 1931 the German SPD (Social Democratic Party) in particular carried the flag of the non-partisan "Iron Front", three large white arrows on a red flag. The five-pointed yellow soviet star, hammer and sickle and clenched fist then appeared all the larger on the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) flags – along with their auxiliary troops. The National Socialists also showed a red flag, on which a white disk with a black swastika was to be seen. After the Second World War, the coats of arms and flags of the individual communist states were retained in the Eastern Bloc, but some were added with communist emblems. On national holidays, the red, unadorned flags were displayed next to the national flag. The communist parties kept the red flag – often with a hammer and sickle – as a party symbol or flag, regardless of whether they followed the teachings of Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Ho Chi Minh or Enver Hoxha. After social democrats / democratic socialists had finally said goodbye to the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with their commitment to democracy, the market economy and private property, the red flag, apart from the First of May Day demonstrations, lost more and more importance in these associations.
Source: Jürgen Kaltschmitt, partially Volker Preuß,
nach:
Bibliography by Jürgen Kaltschmitt:
– T.Wise/G.Rosignoli, Flaggen und Standarten 1618-1900, München 1978
– R.Brzezinski/R.Hook, Die Armee Gustav Adolfs-Infanterie und Kavallerie, Königswinter, 2006
– R.Chartrand, Colonial American Troops 1610-1774 (3), Oxford 2002
about the yellow hospital flag and red ambulance flag:
– R. Hodges Jr/ P.Dennis, American Civil War Railroad Tactics, Oxford 2009
– P. Katcher/R.Scollins, Flags of the American Civil War (2) Union, London 1993
– P. Katcher/M.Youens, The Army of Northern Virginia, London 1975
about the red and black flags of the anarcho-syndicalists and the national-syndicalists:
– J.M. Bueno, Uniformes Militares de la Guerra Civil Espanola en Color, Madrid 1971
