http://www.ngw.nl/int/dld/p/images/prenzlab.jpg
These are the arms used by Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin prior to 1992. On the International Civic Heraldry site it states that the base shows Ernst-Thälmann Park. Can anyone give me more information on this (the park)? Is the gules charge a communist flag?
Daniel C. Boyer wrote:
Is the gules charge a communist flag?
It occurs to me it might be the monument though if so in my view it is oversimplified and not figured.
Yes the red flag is indeed the communist flag. Ernst Thälman (1886 in Hamburg-1944 in Koncentration Camp Buchenwald) was one of the founders of the German Communist Party. The design is problay as you write Daniel a reference to the Monument in the Park, see below:
Marcus K wrote:
Yes the red flag is indeed the communist flag. Ernst Thälman (1886 in Hamburg-1944 in Koncentration Camp Buchenwald) was one of the founders of the German Communist Party. The design is problay as you write Daniel a reference to the Monument in the Park, see below:
But I’m thinking one would blazon it as just as the flag, not the monument; the similarity of appearance just being an artistic interpretation. What does anyone else think?
You have to remember that the arms of communist influenced areas were very stylized, and supposedly "modern" as a reaction to what they saw of heraldry being an aristocratic toy of the "bourgeiouse" (hope I spelled that right!)
Though it is interesting to note that in 1917/18 the bolsheviks replaced the russian imperial eagle with a baroque looking shield…
MohamedHossam wrote:
You have to remember that the arms of communist influenced areas were very stylized, and supposedly "modern" as a reaction to what they saw of heraldry being an aristocratic toy of the "bourgeiouse" (hope I spelled that right!)
In my opinion this can’t really be right as their view of it is/would have been that heraldry is aristocratic in nature, and the aristocrats and bourgeoisie are two distinct classes, though of course there might be a more sophisticated Marxist analysis in this area.
Quote:
Though it is interesting to note that in 1917/18 the bolsheviks replaced the russian imperial eagle with a baroque looking shield…
I’d not heard this—this is quite interesting as the official story I’d always read is that the Bolsheviks got rid of all heraldry, even civic heraldry, after coming in, before a new "civic heraldry" (and there is a question here, too, whether it can really even be called this, as so many Soviet "arms" deviate so far from heraldic norms) was initiated by Stalin—do you have any more details on this? It gives rise to the question whether many of these coats can even begin to be blazoned, beginning with this in particular. I think this one might be, though the base is a bit of a challenge…
here is the "coat of arms" if the term fits introduced for the Russian SFSR:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/COA_Russian_SFSR.png
Russian SFSR
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/s/su-ru)18.gif
Variant of the above
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/s/su)ua.gif
Ukraine
I see in some references this is not called a shield, but rather a cartouche
This was called in Russian "Gerby" the same word for coat of arms (according to Flags of the World: http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/su-.html#vex)
I’m guessing that maybe they didn’t purposely choose a "heraldic" so to speak, shield, just a "background" for their main emblem, but who knows? I wonder if anyone, perhaps from the CHR knowledgeable in this part of the world’s armorial practices can shed some light on it.
