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On a number of occasions, such as at football matches and political demonstrations, I have seen citizens of the post-unification Germany flying what I thought was the historical flag of the BRD (the flag with the eagle symbol). To my surprise, this interview with the German ambassador to Malaysia shows that he is displaying the same flag.
Why is this? Is there a particular reason for not flying the flag of the current German state, but flying this flag instead?
What you probably saw was this:
That is the government flag of Germany.
The government flag may only be used by federal government authorities and its use by others is an offence, punishable with a fine. However, public use of flags similar to the Bundesdienstflagge (e.g. using the actual coat of arms instead of the Bundesschild) is tolerated, and such flags are sometimes seen at international sporting events.
The flag of Germany is this:
That one everybody can use.
As to why civilians (like sport fans) will use some variant of the government flag: IMHO it has a certain conservative/nationalist tone as the official flag was also the flag of the Weimar Republic, so you associate yourself more with the state/government and less with the citizens/republicans.
There is no ‘historical flag of the BRD’. The current Federal Republic of Germany (German abbreviation: BRD) is contiguous with the state that was founded in 1949. The only changes to the federation were the reorganisation of states in the South-West (creating Baden-Württemberg out of three predecessor states) and the admission of the Saarland in the 1950’s followed by the admission of 5 states that formerly made up the GDR plus the enlargement of Berlin (accompanied by a status change for former West Berlin) in 1990. At none of these points did any grand scheme of the state change; most notably, constitution, national flags and national anthem remained the same throughout.
As Martin Schröder outlined, the black-red-gold flag is the official civil flag of Germany and has been since 1949. One version with an eagle shield is a state flag (although the plain black-red-gold is also sometimes used as a state flag); another version with an eagle is apparently an unofficial variant but I daresay that the majority of citizens would not know the difference.
An ambassador in their office would most likely have a state flag with the eagle on display as it seems slightly more official than a mere civil flag (and because they have the authority to use it). Most flags flying outdoors (e.g. on the Bundestag) will be the civil flag (citation needed).
It’s worth noting that these two are not the only black-red-gold flags with a coat-of-arms on them. As Wikipedia’s list of German flags shows, three German states (Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland) use a black-red-gold flag with their state coats-of-arms on top (Rhineland-Palatinate in the canton, the others in the centre). But more importantly and controversially, the flag of the GDR was also black-red-gold but including the hammer-and-compass symbol of socialist East Germany. This last one, obviously, has quite different implications from any of the above which are just ‘I like my country’ or ‘I support my national football team’.
