Flag of Germany
While the use of black-red-gold had been suggested in the Soviet zone in 1946, the Second People's Congress in 1948 decided to adopt the old black-white-red tricolour as a national flag for East Germany. This choice was based on the use of these colours by the National Committee for a Free Germany, a German anti-Nazi organisation that operated in the Soviet Union in the last two years of the war. In 1949, following a suggestion from Friedrich Ebert, Jr., the black-red-gold tricolour was instead selected as the flag of the German Democratic Republic upon the formation of this state on 7 October 1949. From 1949 to 1959, the flags of both West and East Germany were identical. On 1 October 1959, the East German government changed its flag with the addition of its coat of arms. In West Germany, these changes were seen as a deliberate attempt to divide the two Germanys. Displaying this flag in West Germany and West Berlin—where it became known as the (divider-flag)—was seen as a breach of the constitution and subsequently banned until the late 1960s.
Josef Wirmer
Taking up long-lasting controversies surrounding the flag of Germany after World War I and previous proposals made by the vexillologist Ottfried Neubecker, Wirmer designed a national flag based on the Nordic Cross. His draft was meant as a proposal on a new German flag for the event that the conspirators of the 20 July plot would assume power following a successful attempt on Hitler by Stauffenberg. He thereby approached to conservative circles despising the black, red and gold tricolour of the Weimar Republic (and also remedied the breach of the rule of tincture).