Editing Blutfahne

{{Short description|Lost Nazi Party flag relic}}
{{about|the Nazi flag|the naval battle ensign|Bloody flag|the term "Blutfahne" as used in medieval context|Blutbanner}}
{{italic title}}
[[File:Reichsparteitagnov1935.jpg|250px|thumb|upright=1.4|[[Adolf Hitler]] reviewing [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] members in 1935. He is accompanied by the ''Blutfahne'' and its bearer [[Schutzstaffel|SS]]-''[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Jakob Grimminger]].]]

The '''''Blutfahne''''' ({{IPA|de|ˈbluːtfaːnə|pron}}), or '''Blood Flag''', is or was a [[Nazi Party]] [[swastika]] flag that was carried during the attempted coup d'état [[Beer Hall Putsch]] in [[Munich]], Germany on 9 November 1923, during which it became soaked in the blood of one of the [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] men who died. It subsequently became one of the most revered objects of the [[Nazi Party]]. It was used in ceremonies in which new flags for party organisations were "consecrated" by the Blood Flag when touched by it.

==Beer Hall Putsch==
{{main|Beer Hall Putsch}}
The flag was that of the 5th SA ''Sturm'', which was carried in the march towards the ''[[Feldherrnhalle]]''. When the Munich police fired on the National Socialists (Nazis), the flagbearer Heinrich Trambauer was hit and dropped the flag. [[Andreas Bauriedl]], an SA man marching alongside the flag, was killed and fell onto it, staining the flag with his blood.<ref name = hoff>[[Hilmar Hoffmann]], ''The Triumph of Propaganda: Film and National Socialism, 1933-1945, Volume 1'', pp. 20–22.</ref>
 
There were two stories about what happened to the flag in the aftermath of the Putsch: one was that the wounded Trambauer took the flag to a friend where he removed it from its staff before leaving with it hidden inside his jacket and later giving it to a man named Karl Eggers for safekeeping. The other story was that the flag was confiscated by the Munich authorities and was later returned to the Nazis via Eggers. In the mid-1930s, after a myth emerged that Bauriedl had been carrying the flag, an investigation by Nazi archivists concluded that Trambauer was the standard-bearer and that the flag had been concealed by an SA man, not taken by the police, though they had confiscated other flags which they later returned.<ref>Jay W. Baird, ''To Die for Germany: Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon'', Indiana University Press, 1992, p. 259.</ref> Regardless of which story was the correct one, after [[Adolf Hitler]] was released from [[Landsberg Prison]] (having served nine months of a five-year prison sentence for his part in the putsch), Eggers gave the flag to him.

==Sacred Nazi symbol==
After Hitler received the flag, he had it fitted to a new staff and [[finial]]; just below the finial was a silver dedication sleeve which bore the names of the 16 dead participants of the putsch.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Trueman|first1=Chris|title=The Beer Hall Putsch of 1923|url=http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/beer_hall_putsch_of_1923.htm|accessdate=1 December 2014}}</ref> Bauriedl was one of the 16 honorees. In addition, the flag was no longer attached to the staff by its original sewn-in sleeve, but by a red-white-black intertwined cord which ran through the sleeve instead.<ref>Brian L Davis, ''Flags of the Third Reich'', Osprey Publishing, 2000, p. 100.</ref> In 1926, at the second [[Nazi Party]] congress at Weimar, Hitler ceremonially bestowed the flag on [[Joseph Berchtold]], then head of the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]].<ref name= hoff/> The flag was thereafter treated as a sacred object by the Nazi Party and carried by SS–''[[Sturmbannführer]]'' [[Jakob Grimminger]] at various Nazi Party ceremonies. One of the most visible uses of the flag was when Hitler, at the Party's annual [[Nuremberg rallies]], touched other Nazi banners with the ''Blutfahne'', thereby "sanctifying" them.<ref>Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage, ''An Illustrated Dictionary of the Third Reich'', McFarland, 24 Dec 2013, p. 22.</ref> This was done in a special ceremony called the "flag consecration" (''Fahnenweihe'').<ref name = hoff/>

When not in use, the ''Blutfahne'' was kept at the headquarters of the Nazi Party, the [[Brown House, Munich|Brown House]] in Munich with an SS guard of honour. The flag had a small tear in it, believed to have been caused during the Putsch, that went unrepaired for a number of years.

==Disappearance==
The ''Blutfahne'' was last seen in public at the ''[[Volkssturm]]'' induction ceremony on 18 October 1944{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}} (''not'', as frequently reported,<ref>Davis p.100</ref> at ''[[Gauleiter]]'' [[Adolf Wagner]]'s funeral six months previously). This ceremony was conducted by [[Heinrich Himmler]] and attended by [[Wilhelm Keitel]], [[Heinz Guderian]], [[Hans Lammers]], [[Martin Bormann]], [[Karl Fiehler]], [[Wilhelm Schepmann]], and [[Erwin Kraus]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}}

After this last public display, the ''Blutfahne'' vanished. Its current whereabouts are unknown, but it is generally assumed to have been destroyed amidst the [[Bombing of Munich in World War II|Allied bombing of Munich]] in 1945.<ref>Brian L. Davis, ''Flags of the Third Reich (3): Party & Police Units'', Osprey Publishing, 2012, p. 4.</ref>

==See also==
{{Portal|Germany|Politics}}
* [[Glossary of Nazi Germany]]
* [[List of German flags]]
* [[Nazism]]
* [[Personal standard of Adolf Hitler]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{Cite book
  | last = Davis
  | first = Brian L.
  | title = Flags and Standards of the Third Reich: Army, Navy and Air Force 1933–1945
  | publisher = Macdonald and Jane’s
  | year = 1975
  | location = London
  | isbn = 978-1-356-04879-3}}
* Orth, R: „Von einem verantwortungslosen Kameraden zum geistigen Krüppel geschlagen.“ Der Fall des Hitler-Putschisten Heinrich Trambauer. in: Historische Mitteilungen der Ranke-Gesellschaft 25 (2012), p.&nbsp;208–236.
* {{Cite book
  | last = Davis
  | first = Brian L.
  | title = Flags of the Third Reich
  | publisher = Osprey Publishing
  | year = 2000
  | location = Northants
  | isbn = 1-84176-171-0}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}

* [http://flagspot.net/flags/de%7Dns_bf.html ''Blutfahne''] at Flags of the World.

{{Ranks, uniforms and insignia of Nazi Germany}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1923 establishments in Germany]]
[[Category:Special events flags]]
[[Category:Lost objects]]
[[Category:Beer Hall Putsch]]
[[Category:Flags of Nazi Germany]]
[[Category:Swastika]]