Last modified: 2025-09-06 by olivier touzeau
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Image located by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 21 November 2022
Apparently someone saw this as a way to save Austria. But the specific
way is quite extraordinary. Apart from the suggested two-sided flag [top is obverse, bottom is reverse], he
also suggests 24 canton flags, of which 4 are depicted. I have yet to
determine the system in them, that would tell the other 20.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 21 November 2022
The colour plate Un drapeau pour l'Europe (A
flag for Europe) was published by P.M.G. Lévy and P. Martin in Saisons d'Alsace, 1950, No.3.
The plate shows the flags of two private European movements that existed in 1950, the European Movement and the Paneuropa Union, and another 12 proposals of Europen Union flag. No detail is given either on the origin or meaning of the proposals.
[Carole Lager. Le drapeau européen, histoire et symbolisme (The European flag, history and symbolism) [lag99].In Fahnen, Flags, Drapeaux (Proceedings of the XVth
International Congress of Vexillology, Zurich, 23-27 August 1993
[icv93])]
Ivan Sache, 6 January 2000
Proposal #1 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #1 is a plain green flag.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #2 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #2 is horizontally divided blue-green-yellow-black with a triangle horizontally divided into two equal white-red parts, placed along the hoist.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #3 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #3 is a blue flag charged in the center with a white triangle bordered in black and white.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #4 - Image by António Martins, 21 July 2017
Proposal #4 is quartered red-blue-green-yellow by a thick white cross.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #5 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #5 is horizontally divided blue-white, 13 stripes, with a red, square canton (height, seven stripes) charged with three columns of five white stars each.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #6 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #6 is a white flag charged with a green letter "E" in the center.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
This flag has actually [centered on a white field] the "Former Flag of the European Movement".
Esteban Rivera & Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 29 May 2025
I think the green "E" flag had not gone out of style in 1970. As far as I remember, in the 1980s, this flag was often seen as the flag of Europe (the continent) without any political meaning. Unfortunately, I don't have any source to back this up
Elias Granqvist, 2 June 2025
Proposal #7 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #7 is horizontally divided blue-white-red with "EUROPE" written in black thick letters in the white stripe.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #8 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #8 is a blue flag charged with a white diamond and crossed by a white (through the blue field) and red (through the diamond) stripe rynning from the flag' upper left to lower right corner.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #9 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #9 is white with a red cross bordered in yellow; a red square bordered in yellow is placed in the center of the cross and charged with a white shield and a red bend. The shield shows the historical coat of arms of Strasbourg.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #10 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #10 is blue with a thin white cross and a green triangle bordered in black placed in the middle of the cross. THe fly is indented so tthat the flag is shaped like letter "E".
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #11 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #11 is quartered per saltire white-red-white-blue with two smaller green triangles placed inside the white triangles and the white letters E and U placed in the red and blue triangle, respectively.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #12 - Image by Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Proposal #12 is quartered per saltire white-red-white-blue with a green star placed in each white triangle. The star placed in the left triangle is tilted to the upper left corner whereas the other star points upwards.
Ivan Sache, 15 April 2005
Many early proposals for an European flag are depicted in
the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv20] & [ljv21].
Sample pages from [ljv21]: pp. 26-27, pp. 32-33, pp. 46-47, pp. 56-57, pp. 96-97, see the publisher's website.
While the
shown flag designs are interesting by themselves, the curation given to
them seems, based on the blurb only, lacking — at least vexillologically
so, and the unrelated preface Marie Rotkopf feels mismatched in tone and
content. The publisher’s blurb refers to «150 other submitted designs»,
but it’s unclear wether that’s the number of flag proposals shown in the
book (which according to the publisher has 130 p., shown 1 to 3 flags on
each in the known samples) or of a vaster corpus of pre-1955 proposals
sent to the Council of Europe up to 1955 «from all over the world» but
most «were drafted by men from West Germany and France».
The choice for the cover image was also, I conjecture, marred lack of
vexillological acumen: It shows the actual 1905-1950 flag of Malaysia
and its predeceessors. By then this flag had freshly
become a historical item but was surely known by anyone current on
international affairs. I am sure that it being put forward as a possible
flag for united Europe was some form of unsubtle trolling, likely
streped in the casual racism of the time… Of course this historical
Malaysian flag is in 2020 known mostly by Malaysians themselves, Malay
history buffs, and vexillologists — but not by author Jonas von Lenthe,
who seemingly picked up this design among the 150 as suitable example,
which is not.
Two reviews were published in vexillological periodicals, respectively [scf21a] (Laura Scofield: _Vexillum_ *15*: 28-29) and [vxc21b] (anonymous: _Vexil·la Catalana_ *11*: 40-41).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025
Proposals by Wolfram Neue - Images by António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025
These two designs depicted in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv21] pp. 32-33 are dated of 1951 and credited to Wolfram Neue, of Bad Elms, West Germany, whose accompaning text (or at least the fragment quoted here) gives no indication about the flag designs themselves. There are evident common traits (underlined by the the chapter heading in [ljv21] — “Colours and Fields”), and they might have been meant as excluding alternatives to each other, or as complementary — f.i., one being a flag and the other an ensign (i.e., its equivalent afloat).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 July 2025
Proposals by Walther Timm - Images by António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 July 2025
These two designs depicted in the book Rejected: Designs for the European Flag [ljv21] pp. 26-27 are credited to Walther Timm, from Bad Nauheim in West Germany. Again, these seem to be variants of each other and the text is not clear how they were meant to be coordinated. This time the text has significant content though, referencing the «current, provisional flag», meaning the European Movement flag, but as «a white E on a green background», which is the opposite of the known design.
These two proposals take thence the color green as their «defining feature» (and in my opinion neither is in anyway a better design than the "E" flag, quite the opposite). These two images seem to be drawn on paper, with thin inkpen (or pencil) holding lines and the green areas coasely filled in crayon; the common ratio is about 21:31.
António Martins-Tuválkin, 24 July 2025
