Flag of Germany 3:5 figure. In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte declared the First French Empire. In response to this, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II of the Habsburg dynasty declared his personal domain to be the Austrian Empire and became Francis I of Austria. Taking the colours of the banner of the Holy Roman Emperor, the flag of the Austrian Empire was black and gold. Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, with Napoleon forcing the empire's dissolution in 1806. After this point, these colours continued to be used as the flag of Austria until 1918. The colours red and white were also significant
Flag of Germany Flag of Germany The flag of Germany or German flag () is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany: black, red, and gold (). The flag was first adopted as the national flag of modern Germany in 1919, during the short-lived Weimar Republic, until 1933. Germany has two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red, which have played an important role in the modern history of Germany. The black-red-gold tricolour's first appearance anywhere in a German-ethnicity sovereign state within what today comprises Germany occurred in 1778, and achieved prominence during the 1848