Nothing like a real Imperial German regimental flag !
The white flags are for the regiments / batls. that
had white shoulder straps . There was only 1 flag per Batl
The German Armee considered the flag to be the focal point
of the regiment .
Who would have thought that we could ever be so lucky
to own one of these in a private collection .
General Patton's Army took possession of quite a few
of the Imperial Army after WW II.
They keep then for a number of years .
Later in about the 1950's the German government
asked for their flags back and they were returned .
However , while in storage some of the G.I.'s
removed some of the flags from their flag poles
and lifted the flags . That is how the white flag
that is shown here became possible to own .
There is no way now to tell exactly which regiment it is from
as the only true way to know is from the unit ring nailed
to the pole which the G . I. left in place .
Several poles less the flags were returned with the unit
rings still attached . Reinhard Redlin did an article about
this some years ago. The white flag shown along with
my Standarte of the 7th Kurassiere Regt were owned
and sold by Ray Zyla of Mohawk Arms . The story I was told
by Ray is that an Army doctor brought the 2 flags back from
Germany after the war . He kept them a number of years
Since he had no children at an older age he gave them to
someone who worked for him . They then were sold
or consigned to Ray for sale .
The reason the flags were removed from the poles is that
the poles are too long to be able to lift without someone
seeing what was being done . Neil Stewart of Tiger III books
and Wilhelm Steifensand are working on some volumes
of books on the subject of German flags .
Steve
