<P> 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 Revolutions . The short - lived Frankfurt Parliament of 1848--1850 proposed the tricolour as a flag for a united and democratic German state under a constitutional monarchy . With the formation of the short - lived Weimar Republic after World War I, the tricolour was adopted as the national flag of Germany . Sixteen years later following World War II, the tricolour was again designated as the flag of both West and East Germany divided states in 1949 . The two flags were identical until 1959, when the East German flag was augmented with the coat of arms of East Germany . Since reunification on 3 October 1990, the black - red - gold tricolour has become the flag of a reunified Federal Republic of Germany . </P> <P> After the Austro - Prussian War in 1866, the Prussian - dominated North German Confederation adopted a tricolour of black - white - red as its flag . This flag later became the flag of the German Empire, formed following the unification of Germany under the Prussian king who became emperor in 1871, and was used until 1918 with the end of the First World War . Black, white, and red were reintroduced as the German national colours with the establishment of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler in 1933, replacing German republican colours with imperial colours until the end of World War II . </P> <P> The colours of the modern flag are associated with the republican democracy first proposed in 1848, formed after World War I, and represent German unity and freedom . During the Weimar Republic, the black - red - gold colours were the colours of the democratic, centrist, and republican political parties, as seen in the name of Reichsbanner Schwarz - Rot - Gold, formed by members of the Social Democratic, the Centre, and the Democratic parties to defend the republic against extremists on the right and left . </P> <P> The German association with the colours black, red, and gold surfaced in the radical 1840s, when the black - red - gold flag was used to symbolize the movement against the Conservative European Order that was established after Napoleon's defeat . </P>

What does the colours on the german flag represent