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.
Habsburg flag
The original form of this flag, introduced in 1686, featured a yellow background with the double-headed eagle. However, this proved to be a complicated design and was too hard to reproduce. From 1720 onward, the simpler form with the yellow and black bars started to appear. With the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1804, this flag was approved for use as a civil flag. For naval and military uses, the newly founded Austrian Empire introduced the now-familiar red-white-red with the Austrian coat of arms.