Prussia

Very little is known about the origins of my ancestor Johann Heinrich Vogler other than the fact he gave "Prussia" as his place of origin on the ship's list for the ship "Sally" in 1752. This page is just for general knowledge regarding the area of Europe once referred to as Prussia.

The following three flags are from the time during which Heinrich would have left Prussia. The first is the Emperors Banner used by the area that later became Germany. The second is the flag of Thuringia (one of the areas the Vogler name originates from).The third flag is the Prussia flag from 1750.

All 3 Flags Courtesy of the "Flags of the World" website at http://fotw.digibel.be/flags/index.html

Emperor's banner

Before 1815, there was no state called Germany, in the sense we now use. There was the Holy Roman Empire, with a ruler called (officially in Latin) the Roman Emperor and which claimed to be in principle the continuation of the Roman Empire which ruled basically all of what is now Germany, as well as pieces of Italy, Austria, the Low Countries and a few more. Intermittently earlier and continuously after around 1400, one of the emperor's titles was King of Germany, but this does not mean there was anything like a German government. There was an imperial court and chancellory, an imperial court, but except in imperial cities like Frankfurt, the authority of the Emperor was to a great extent dependent on the cooperation of the territorial princes.

Emperor's banner

Nevertheless the Emperor had a banner, consisting of a black eagle, armed red, generally on a gold (one yellow) field. Sometimes the same eagle is portrayed on a white field; a flag chart early in the 18th century has the yellow flag as the flag of the emperor and the white one as that of the empire, but it is uncertain as to whether this represents a real distinction. After 1400, the eagle became two-headed; possibly this reflected the practice of the defunct Byzantine empire, their main competitor to the claim to being the Roman Empire. Increasingly, but not uniformly, the eagle acquired a sword and orb, as well as a crown. The coat of arms, but rarely the banner, also sometimes had a red border. A good representation of the early pattern can be found in Crampton's Flags of the World. I found some nice 15th century representations in a small book called Kaiser Heinrichs Romfahrt (Emperor Henry's Pilgrimage), published in Koblenz in 1895; Whitney Smith has one of these illustrations on p.114 of FTAAW. Two additional flags associates with the Empire worth mentioning are Sankt Georg Fahne (Smith labels this the Imperial War Flag), a white St. George's cross on a red field frequently with a schwenkel (FTAAW, p.115) and the Reichsturmfahne (Imperial Storm Flag), like the Imperial flag above with a red schwenkel.

Increasingly, the separate territories of the Empire acquired their own flags. More significantly, after 1500, the Emperor was always an Austrian Hapsburg and the always limited power and authority of the Emperor more or less disappeared behind the policy and power of Austria.

With Napoleon's forced dissolution of the Empire in 1806, the story changes. The Emperor became Emperor of Austria (he was previously Archduke of Austria, but as I mentioned Imperial policy had pretty much become Austrian anyway) and many of the imperial insignia became, with minor changes, Austrian.

Norman Martin, 1998-01-14

Thuringia (Germany)

Freistaat Thüringen

The Land flag is white on red

The state flag is the same with the arms in the middle.

Proportions 1:2 - different from the other German flags.

Pascal Vagnat, 1995-12-09

The government flag includes the arms in the center. The shield is blue, with a crowned lion (rampant). The lion is divided into eight horizontal stripes, alternating red and white. The crown and claws are gold. Surrounding the lion are eight white six-pointed stars. This is very similar to the arms of Hessen. I heard a rumor that the colors of the arms might be different, but I'm not sure of that.

David Lewellen

Prussia, 1750

A white flag with a crowned Prussian eagle (a black eagle with the letters FR on the breast) with sword and scepter

Prussia Home Page (Preussen) "Lest we forget our heritage, we no longer are". Frederick Raymond Ramont

I belong to the Prussia Roots mailing list from this site. I have found this area of Europe to be very hard to follow. This site has helped me find old maps and items like modern names for towns and villages that were renamed after one of the many wars. For names of towns and villages that no longer exist. Many of the mailing list members are from Germany, Australia, Canada and the USA.

http://www.kolpack.com/packnet/prussia.html A brief history of Prussia.

http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/prussian/reconstructions.htm PRUSSIAN  RECONSTRUCTIONS. No worthless cultures, no worthless peoples.

http://www.michaelectric.com/prussia/ Prussia On-line