Old fire brigade flag from the Bavarian Forest in the USA surfaced – Bavaria

Of course, the fire brigades in Bavaria are the ones with the most water, the tallest ladders and the loudest sirens. Nevertheless, it doesn’t hurt to take a look at our colleagues in Saxony-Anhalt. The specialist working group on fire brigade history there has written a handbook on fire brigade history, which can be accessed online.

The section “The importance of flags in the fire brigade” makes it unmistakably clear that a fire brigade flag must be kept in a climatically suitable room that is not accessible to everyone. The flags should be kept in flat drawers in a flag cabinet and never displayed hanging. The weight of the fabric would otherwise lead to the flag tearing and the appliqués peeling off.

In this respect, they now have a problem with the Eberhardsreuth volunteer fire brigade in the Freyung-Grafenau district. They have only just rediscovered their historic, first flag. In 1945 it was lost, nobody believed that it would still turn up. Then, as he said on the radio and in various media, the commander suddenly got a message from an American woman. She claims to have discovered the flag in a gun shop in Houston, Texas. “Eberhardsreuth volunteer fire brigade – 1906” is written on it and “God in honor, the next one in defense”. That has to be the flag, even if nobody knows how it got there. It just hangs from the ceiling – and is accessible to everyone.

The Eberhardsreuth fire brigade now wants its flag back and then possibly even follow the storage tips from colleagues from Saxony-Anhalt. The commander could ask the fire brigade in Leipheim, Swabia, they have experience there. There, too, the flag was lost during the Second World War, with the difference that 73 years later it was suddenly sent by post. From Colorado Springs, United States. A lieutenant colonel in the US Army took her away, but her grandson finally sent her back.

However, there is no trace of professional storage: the flag is so badly damaged that it cannot even be restored. At least that didn’t happen to the firefighters from Überlingen on Lake Constance: They hadn’t found their flag there for decades either, until a colleague went through a closet. There she was, folded up in a box. However, it is also quite worn out.

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