BERLIN.- Coats of Arms, signs, banknotes, postage stamps, documents, seals, buildings, and even public events – all state signs and symbols of the Weimar Republic were to be given a new appearance after the November-Revolution of 1918 to distinguish the Republic from the German Empire by the usage of a modern design language. The first parliamentary democracy in Germany wanted to free itself from the past not only politically, but also aesthetically. The office of the Reichskunstwart (“national custodian of art”) was established for state design and was held by the Weimar art historian and Werkbund-member Edwin Redslob from 1920 till 1933.
A central task was the renewal of the national emblems. Redslob developed formal guidelines, their artistic elaboration was mainly incurred by representatives of Expressionism and Objective Modernism. Numerous debates were held in parliament and public about the proper form of the eagle. These controversies as well as the tolerated coexistence of different coat of arms designs illustrate the aesthetic and social contradictions in the Weimar Republic.
Today the national flag and the federal eagle stand for a societal unity based on a democratic constitution. The period of National Socialism, the Second World War, and the difficult post-war period associated with German guilt and division were the reasons for an ambivalent relationship to national identity and its symbols. Both German states dealt differently with history and the tradition of national symbols. Even after the reunion, the individual self-image of their citizens led to further distortions, which have not yet been completely solved.
Meanwhile, state emblems are once again significantly more present in public and are used more unbiased, e.g. in the context of media staging of large sporting events or in the production and marketing of items decorated with the eagle-symbol or the national colors. At the same time, these symbols are used in a questionable context to convey nationalist and anti-democratic messages.
The Werkbundarchiv - Museum der Dinge presents historic material form Redslob’s estate with the special exhibition “Democracy and Its Eagles”. It is particularly suitable for transferring and discussing fundamental questions of governmental self-representation and symbolism into a contemporary context.
