From 1972 to 1988, the separate West and East German teams used their respective national flags. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, many East Germans cut the coat of arms out of their flags, as Hungarians had done in 1956 and as Romanians would soon do during the fall of Ceaușescu. The widespread act of removing the coat of arms from the East German flag implied the plain black-red-gold tricolour as symbol for a united and democratic Germany. Finally, on 3 October 1990, as the area of the German Democratic Republic was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany, the black-red-gold tricolour became the flag of a reunified Germany. In 1998, the Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship was formed. The duty of this organisation, directly responsible to the federal government, is to examine the consequences of the former East German regime. As its logo, the foundation used an East German flag with the Communist coat of arms cut out. The old black-white-red tricolour of the German Empire is still used by monarchists and those members of German royalty who long for the peaceful reintroduction of a German democratic monarchy. This use of the old flag is almost completely overshadowed by its prevalent use by the far right; since the aforementioned ban on all Nazi symbolism (e. g. the "Hakenkreuz" (swastika), the "Schutzstaffel's" (SS) double sig rune, etc.) is still in effect within today's Germany, the far right have been forced to forego any Nazi flags and instead use the old imperial flag, which the Nazis themselves banned in 1935. In Germany, the use of the flag and other national symbols has been relatively low for most of the time since the Second World War — a reaction against the widespread use of flags by the Nazi Party and against nationalistic fervour in general, especially that of the Nazis. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which took place in Germany, public use of the national flag increased dramatically. This explosion in the flag's occurrence in day-to-day life was initially greeted by many Germans with a mixture of surprise and apprehension. The decades-old fear that German flag-waving and national pride was inextricably associated with its Nazi past was dismissed by the end of the tournament by Germans and non-Germans alike. As many Germans regarded showing the own flag as part of their support for the own team in the tournament, most flags disappeared after the end of a tournament, sometimes due to government decisions.