HanauMan
Practically Family
- Messages
- 809
- Location
- Inverness, Scotland
A couple of unidentified bodies washed ashore here in early 1942, and despite the fact that no official confirmation has ever been found as to their identity, it was believed at the time, and is still widely believed, that they were German submariners. They were buried in a local cemetery and for many years after the war a West German flag (the red-black-gold) appeared on their grave on Memorial Day. Which I thought was kind of presumptuous, they might have been from Magdeburg.
The East German (German Democratic Republic) flag was the same as the West German flag, just with a Socialist emblem (state seal) in the middle. Anyhow, the West German flag (red-black-gold) came about in the revolutions of the 19th century and, as to your sailors coming from Magdeburg, the same flag was used during the Weimar Republic (in eastern Germany). So, I guess, they used the appropriate flag in your cemetery.