Black, red, and gold in three equal horizontal stripes are the colors of the flag of the Federal Republic of Germany. The colors date to the emperors of the Middle Ages. They reappeared in the war against Napoleon when a corps of army volunteers drawn from all the German principalities adopted black uniforms with red braid and gold buttons.

Subsequently student organizations, dedicated to the unification of Germany, used the colors on their banners. In the first attempt to create a democratic and unified Germany, leaders of the 1848 Revolution adopted the tricolor flag in the National Assembly or Frankfurt Parliament.

The flag was not actually used until 1918 when the German National Assembly of the democratic Weimar Republic adopted it officially. When Hitler came to power in 1933 he abolished the tri-color flag.

In 1950, it was reintroduced by the German Parliament as the official flag of the Federal Republic of Germany.