Editing Flag of Germany (section)

=== German Confederation ===
[[File:Flag of Urburschenschaft.svg|thumb|The flag adopted by the Jena Urburschenschaft]]
The 1815–16 [[Congress of Vienna]] led to the creation of the [[German Confederation]], a loose union of all remaining German states after the Napoleonic Wars. The Confederation was created as a replacement for the now-extinct Holy Roman Empire, with [[Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor|Francis I of Austria]]—the last Holy Roman Emperor—as its president. The confederation did not have a flag of its own, although the black-red-gold tricolour is sometimes mistakenly attributed to it.<ref name="GermConf">{{cite web |url=http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de1848.html |title=German Confederation |work=[[Flags of the World (website)|Flags of the World]] |access-date=2 March 2008 |archive-date=2 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080302010056/http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/flags/de1848.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Upon returning from the war, veterans of the Lützow Free Corps founded the {{lang|de|[[Urburschenschaft]]}} fraternity in [[Jena]] in June 1815. The Jena {{lang|de|Urburschenschaft}} eventually adopted a flag with three equal horizontal bands of red, black, and red, with gold trim and a golden oak branch across the black band, following the colours of the uniforms of the Free Corps.<ref name="Rabbow2007"/> The famous gymnast and student union (''{{lang|de|[[Burschenschaft]]en}}'') founder [[Friedrich Ludwig Jahn]] proposed a black-red-gold banner for the Burschen. Some members interpreted the colours as a rebirth of the Imperial black-yellow colours embellished with the red of liberty or the blood of war. More radical students exclaimed that the colours stood for the black night of slavery, the bloody struggle for liberty, and the golden dawn of freedom.<ref>[[Heinrich von Treitschke]], ''History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century'', English translation 1917. Volume 3, p. 51.</ref> In a memoir, Anton Probsthan of Mecklenburg, who served in the Lützow Free Corps, claimed his relative Fraulein Nitschke of Jena presented the Burschenschaft with a flag at the time of its foundation, and for this purpose chose the black-red-and-gold colours of the defunct secret society ''Vandalia''.<ref>Heinrich Treitschke, ''History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century'', English translation 1917. Volume 3 Appendixes, p. 603.</ref>

[[File:Hambacher Fest 1832.jpg|thumb|left|200px|[[Hambach Festival]] (May 1832), contemporary lithograph]] [[File:Hambach Fest 4 Fahne.JPG|thumb|right|The 1832 ''Ur-Fahne'']]
Since the students who served in the Lützow Free Corps came from various German states, the idea of a unified German state began to gain momentum within the {{lang|de|Urburschenschaft}} and similar Burschenschaft that were subsequently formed throughout the Confederation. On 18 October 1817, the fourth anniversary of the [[Battle of Leipzig]], hundreds of fraternity members and academics from across the Confederation states met in [[Wartburg]] in [[Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach]] (in modern [[Thuringia]]), calling for a free and unified German nation.

The gold-red-black flag of the Jena {{lang|de|Urburschenschaft}} featured prominently at this [[Wartburg festival]]. Therefore, the colours black, red, and gold eventually became symbolic of this desire for a unified German state. The Ministerial Council of the German Confederation, in its determination to maintain the status quo,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.britannica.com/eb/article-33361 |title=Austria: The Age of Metternich |year=2008 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] Online |access-date=5 March 2008 |archive-date=28 March 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060328145216/http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-33361 |url-status=live }}</ref> enacted the [[Carlsbad Decrees]] of 1819 that banned all student organisations, officially putting an end to the {{lang|de|Burschenschaften}}.

In May 1832, around 30,000 people demonstrated at the [[Hambach Festival]] for freedom, unity, and civil rights. The colours black, red, and gold had become a well established symbol for the liberal, democratic and republican movement within the German states since the Wartburg Festival, and flags in these colours were flown en masse at the Hambach Festival. While contemporary illustrations showed prominent use of a gold-red-black tricolour (an upside-down version of the modern German flag), surviving flags from the event were in black-red-gold. Such an example is the {{lang|de|Ur-Fahne}}, the flag flown from [[Hambach Castle]] during the festival: a black-red-gold tricolour where the red band contains the inscription {{lang|de|Deutschlands Wiedergeburt}} (Germany's rebirth). This flag is now on permanent display at the castle.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hambacher-schloss.de/html_en/The_exhibition/The_Hambach_Festival.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040819212751/http://www.hambacher-schloss.de/html_en/The_exhibition/The_Hambach_Festival.htm |archive-date=19 August 2004 |title=The Hambach Festival |year=2007 |work=Official website of [[Hambach Castle]] |access-date=24 February 2008}}</ref>