Last modified: 2012-03-02 by german editorial team
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It seemed in German the terms National Farmers (Nationale Bauern) and National Peasants (Nationale Bauernschaft) have been somewhat interchangable when it came to translating them into English, especially when dealing with the various historical agrarian political parties that have existed over the last 100 years. When Jaume Ollé submited an image of a flag he called the National Peasantry Flag in the 1990s, he did so without any description, sources, or facts about the flag or organization. This led me to post a 2012 enquiry on the list asking for information about the flag. This page is the result of that inquiry.
GET Editor, 20 January 2011
I suspect that the original German word Jaume translated as ""Peasantry" was Bauern, which could just as likely be translated as "Farmers". So the organization might appear in English-language works as "National Farmers" or "Reich Farmers". Richard Darre, the Reich Minister for Food and Agriculture also held the title Reichbauernfuehrer, but I could not find anything on a Third Reich-era formal organization with a similar name. Some emblems associated with his work had a sword, similar to the flag Jaume submitted, but they didn't have the plow; instead they had a spike of grain and a swastika.
Ned Smith, 15 January 2012
It might also have been Bauernschaft. We do mentioned a bit about a similar design for the "German Rural People's Party Flag" of 1963.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 15 January 2012
I am not sure, but the right name might have been Reichsbauernschaft, which was a National Socialist organization of farmers. I remember that my mother had something to do with some kind of civil service for one year. She was working on a farm and her boss was the local Reichsbauernschaftsführer (leader of local farming community). The Reichsbauernschaft may have been a sub-division of Reichsnährstand. I'll take a look into Bryan's book.
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 16 January 2012
![[National Peasantry (NSDAP, Germany)]](../images/d/de_peasa.gif)
Image by Jaume Ollé
[This flag is also known as the "Farmer's Flag" and the "National Peasantry" Flag]
The flag was adopted in 1929 and was used by the so called "Landvolkbewegung" in Germany. The
Landvolkbewegung was a social movement (mostly peasants) in the German country of Schleswig-
Holstein in the north of Germany. Later it spread to the German Reich statewide. It organized
demonstrations against the "Weimar Republic". The flag displays on a black background a white plough
and a red sword. The flag was manufactured by a member of the Landvolkbewegung, Peter Petersen.
Petersen erroneously thought, that this flag already had been used in the 16. century during the "German Peasants' War". The flag was first used on a demonstration in Neumünster (Schleswig-Holstein) on August 19, 1929. In the following years it was established as the symbol of the rural protest movement. In November 1933 the Nazis banned the flag.
Fornax, 17 January 2012
Ruhl 1937, table 4 (Fahnen und Standarten der NSDAP und deren Gliederungen) shows this flag with the caption "Fahne der Bauernschaft" (flag of the peasantry); together with other organizations like HJ, SA, SS, RLB, RAD, DAF. However, I have not found it (yet) elsewhere. And I find it a bit strange, as from 1933 onwards the official term was Reichsnährstand (see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsn%C3%A4hrstand), not "Bauernschaft" or the like. And they did use a modified swastika as a symbol.
Source: Ruhl, Julius M. ; Starke, Alfred ; Sassmann, Anton (1937) Die Flaggen aller Staaten der Erde nebst den Fahnen der Deutschen Wehrmacht, der NSDAP...Leipzig (Ruhl).
Marcus Schmöger, 18 January 2012
![[German Rural People's Party (Germany)]](../images/d/de_farm.gif)
![[German Rural People's Party (Germany)]](../images/d/de_grpp.gif)
Images by Jaume Ollé
Deutsche Landvolkpartei, a short-lived party in 1963. The emblem and flag had been in use before and after, though.
Jarig Bakker, 14 July 2000
The Deutsche Landvolkpartei was a very short-lived group in 1963. It gathered much of the protest potential of farmers, especially against the European Economic Community. It never took part in elections. During the first public rally on 27 July 1963 the black flag with white plough and red sword was displayed. Various variants of the flag, most probably home-made, were displayed during protest marches in the Summer of 1963. Other flags displayed by the farmers were plain black ones or black flags with inscription "Auf, Bauer, wehre dich!", meaning "Rise, farmer, defend yourself!".
The farmer flag was first designed in 1928 by farmer Peter Petersen from Osterholz (near Flensburg in Schleswig-Holstein) and used during rural riots in 1928 and 1929. Sources: Rabbow 1965 and Rabbow 1970.
Marcus Schmöger, 10 September 2001
[The Democratic Farmer's Party of Germany (Demokratische Bauernpartei Deutschlands, or (DBD) was an active agrarian political party between 1948-1990 in East Germany. The founding of the DBD was an attempt of the SED to weaken the influence of the CDU and LDPD in the farming community by establishing a party which was loyal to the SED. The leadership cadre came mainly from the ranks of the SED.]
