A nice addition would be: "Do you know what your nation's flag means?
For Germany, it is the colors of the nationalist democratic uprising in the 19th century, adopted from the uniform colors of the Lützow Free Corps. Nobody really knows why the uniform had such colors, but the military unit had two important features:
- It was made of people from whole Germany.
- It was made mostly of intellectuals and artists.
The black color of the uniform came from the fact that all free corps got no wages, they had to dye civilian clothes into a uniform color. Almost all free corps had black uniforms, even the bigger ones. It was also considered a color of mourning about the occupation of Germany by France.
Red was chosen for displaying rank insignias, the golden came from bronze buttons on the uniforms.
because of their origin, this unit dominated on one of the first democratic conventions in Germany.