Kingdom of Bohemia
The Kingdom of Bohemia, sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czech Republic. It was an Imperial State in the Holy Roman Empire, the Bohemian king was a prince-elector of the empire; the kings of Bohemia, besides Bohemia ruled the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, which at various times included Moravia, Silesia and parts of Saxony and Bavaria. The kingdom was established by the Přemyslid dynasty in the 12th century from Duchy of Bohemia ruled by the House of Luxembourg, the Jagiellonian dynasty, since 1526 by the House of Habsburg and its successor house Habsburg-Lorraine. Numerous kings of Bohemia were elected Holy Roman Emperors and the capital Prague was the imperial seat in the late 14th century, at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries. After the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the territory became part of the Habsburg Austrian Empire, subsequently the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867.
Bohemia retained its name and formal status as a separate Kingdom of Bohemia until 1918, known as a crown land within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, its capital Prague was one of the empire's leading cities. The Czech language was the main language of the Diet and the nobility until 1627. German was formally made equal with Czech and prevailed as the language of the Diet until the Czech National Revival in the 19th century. German was widely used as the language of administration in many towns after Germans immigrated and populated some areas of the country in the 13th century; the royal court used the Czech and German languages, depending on the ruler and period. Following the defeat of the Central Powers in World War I, both the Kingdom and Empire were dissolved. Bohemia became the core part of the newly formed Czechoslovak Republic. Although some former rulers of Bohemia had enjoyed a non-hereditary royal title during the 11th and 12th centuries, the kingdom was formally established in 1198 by Přemysl Ottokar I, who had his status acknowledged by Philip of Swabia, elected King of the Romans, in return for his support against the rival Emperor Otto IV.
In 1204 Ottokar's royal status was accepted by Otto IV as well as by Pope Innocent III. It was recognized in 1212 by the Golden Bull of Sicily issued by Emperor Frederick II, elevating the Duchy of Bohemia to Kingdom status. Under these terms, the Czech king was to be exempt from all future obligations to the Holy Roman Empire except for participation in the imperial councils; the imperial prerogative to ratify each Bohemian ruler and to appoint the bishop of Prague was revoked. The king's successor was his son, from his second marriage. Wenceslaus I's sister Agnes canonized, was an extraordinarily courageous and energetic woman for her time. Corresponding with the Pope, she established the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star in 1233, the first military order in the Kingdom of Bohemia. Four other military orders were present in Bohemia: the Order of St. John of Jerusalem from c. 1160. 1200–1421. The 13th century was the most dynamic period of the Přemyslid reign over Bohemia. German Emperor Frederick II's preoccupation with Mediterranean affairs and the dynastic struggles known as the Great Interregnum weakened imperial authority in Central Europe, thus providing opportunities for Přemyslid assertiveness.
At the same time, the Mongol invasions absorbed the attention of Bohemia's eastern neighbors and Poland. Přemysl Ottokar II married a German princess, Margaret of Babenberg, became duke of Austria, he thereby acquired Upper Austria, Lower Austria, part of Styria. He conquered the rest of Styria, most of Carinthia, parts of Carniola, he was called "the king of iron and gold". He campaigned as far as Prussia, where he defeated the pagan natives and in 1256, founded a city he named Královec in Czech, which became Königsberg. In 1260, Ottokar defeated Hungary in the Battle of Kressenbrunn, where more than 200,000 men clashed, he ruled an area from Austria to the Adriatic Sea. From 1273, Habsburg king Rudolf began to reassert imperial authority, checking Ottokar's power, he had problems with rebellious nobility in Bohemia. All of Ottokar's German possessions were lost in 1276, in 1278 he was abandoned by part of the Czech nobility and died in the Battle on the Marchfeld against Rudolf. Ottokar was succeeded by his son King Wenceslaus II, crowned King of Poland in 1300.
Wenceslaus II's son Wenceslaus III was crowned King of Hungary a year later. At this time, the Kings of Bohemia ruled from Hungary to the Baltic Sea; the 13th century was a period of large-scale German immigration, during the Ostsiedlung encouraged by the Přemyslid kings. The Germans populated towns and mining districts on the Bohemian periphery and in some cases formed German colonies in the interior of the Czech lands. Stříbro, Kutná Hora, Německý Brod, Jihlava were important German settlements; the Germans brought their own code of law – the ius teutonicum – which formed the basis of the commercial law of Bohemia and Moravia. Marriages between Czech nobles
History of Silesia
In the second half of the 2nd millennium B. C. Silesia belonged to the Lusatian culture. About 500 BC Scyths arrived, Celts in the South and Southwest. During the 1st century BC Silingi and other Germanic people settled in Silesia. For this period we have written reports of antique authors. Slavs arrived in this territory around the 6th century; the first known states in Silesia were those of Greater Bohemia. In the 10th century, Mieszko I incorporated Silesia into the Polish state, it remained part of Poland until the Fragmentation of Poland. Afterwards it was divided between Piast dukes, descendants of Władysław II the Exile, High Duke of Poland. In the Middle Ages, Silesia was divided among many duchies ruled by various dukes of the Piast dynasty. During this time and ethnic German influence increased due to immigrants from the German-speaking components of the Holy Roman Empire. Between the years 1289–1292 Bohemian king Wenceslaus II became suzerain of some Upper Silesian duchies. Silesia subsequently became a possession of the Crown of Bohemia under the Holy Roman Empire in the 14th century, passed with that Crown to the Habsburg Monarchy in 1526.
The Duchy of Crossen was inherited by Margraviate of Brandenburg in 1476 and, with the renunciation by King Ferdinand I and estates of Bohemia in 1538, it became an integral part of Brandenburg. In 1742, most of Silesia was seized by King Frederick the Great of Prussia in the War of the Austrian Succession and subsequently made the Prussian Province of Silesia. After World War I, Lower Silesia, having by far a German majority, remained with Germany while Upper Silesia, after a series of insurrections by the Polish inhabitants, was split. Part was administered as the Silesian Voivodeship; the Prussian Province of Silesia within Germany was divided into the Provinces of Lower Silesia and Upper Silesia. Austrian Silesia, the small portion of Silesia retained by Austria after the Silesian Wars, became part of the new Czechoslovakia. During the Second World War Nazi Germany invaded Polish parts of Upper Silesia. Jews were subject to genocide in the Holocaust, while German plans towards Poles involved ethnic cleansing and biological extermination.
In 1945 both provinces were occupied by the Soviet Union. According to the Potsdam agreement most of this territory was afterwards transferred to Poland; the vast majority of the native ethnic German population was expelled by force and replaced by Polish settlers who had themselves been expelled from eastern Polish Borderlands. The first signs of humans in Silesia date to between 100,000 years ago; the Silesian region between the upper Vistula and upper Oder was the northern extreme of the human penetration at the time of the last glaciation. The anatomically-modern human is estimated to have arrived in Silesia about 35,000 years ago. Subsequently, Silesia was inhabited by people who belonged to changing archaeological cultures in the Stone and Iron Ages; the civilization of Old Europe included Silesia. In the late Bronze Age, the Lusatian culture covered Silesia; the Scythians and Celts played a role within the Silesian territory. Still Germanic tribes migrated to Silesia from Northern Germany or Scandinavia.
The Celts migrated to parts of Silesia in at least two waves. The first wave of Celtic settlers came to areas north of the Sudetes at the beginning of the 4th century BC, they represented the La Tène culture. Archaeologists found evidence of Celtic presence dating to that period in areas of loess soils to the south of modern Wrocław, between the Bystrzyca river and the Oława river, as well as on the Głubczyce Plateau, where for example a lot of Celtic coins have been found; the largest Celtic settlement in Silesia, was the one excavated at Nowa Cerekwia site in Upper Silesia - it was comparable in size to Boii settlements at Němčice in Moravia and at Roseldorf in Lower Austria. Another Celtic migration to areas of modern Poland occurred in parallel with the invasions of Greece and Macedonia in 279-277 BC. At that time Celtic colonization extended into modern Lesser Poland and Subcarpathia. Celtic culture in Silesia flourished during the 4th, 3rd and most of the 2nd centuries BC, but archaeological evidence points to a dramatic population crash - and to complete depopulation of some areas of Celtic settlement - by the end of the 2nd century BC.
Those changes coincided in time with the migrations of the Cimbri and the Teutones, who crossed Silesia on their way south. At that time all evidence of habitation on the Głubczyce Plateau disappeared, the region remained uninhabited for the next 150 years. In other parts of the Celtic territory in Silesia the population experienced sharp declines, but not as total as in the Głubczyce region. Minting of Celtic coins continued in some settlements until the end of the 1st century BC. However, from the 1st century CE onward all evidence of Celtic material culture disappears from Silesia; the La Tène culture in Silesia was succeeded by the Przeworsk culture. The first written sources about Silesia came from the Roman Tacitus. According to Tacitus, the 1st century AD Silesia was inhabited by a multi-ethnic league dominated by the Lugii; the Silingi were part of this federation, most a Vandalic people that lived south of the Baltic Sea in the Laba Elbe and Vistula river areas. Other East Germanic tribes inhabited the reg
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in the Czech Republic and one of the historical Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early modern Margraviate of Moravia was a crown land of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, an imperial state of the Holy Roman Empire a crown land of the Austrian Empire and also one of 17 former crown lands of the Cisleithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. During the early 20th century, Moravia was one of the five lands of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1928. Moravia has an area of over 22,000 km2 and about 3 million inhabitants, 2/7 or 30% of the whole Czech Republic; the statistics from 1921 states, that the whole area of Moravia including the enclaves in Silesia covers 22,623.41 km2. The people are named Moravians, a subgroup of Czechs; the land takes its name from the Morava river, which rises in the northern tip of the region and flows southward to the opposite end, being its major stream. Moravia's largest city and historical capital is Brno.
Before being sacked by the Swedish army during the Thirty Years' War, Olomouc was another capital. Though abolished by an administrative reform in 1949, Moravia is still acknowledged as a specific land in the Czech Republic. Moravian people are aware of their Moravian identity and there is some rivalry between them and the Czechs from Bohemia; the region and former margraviate of Moravia, Morava in Czech, is named after its principal river Morava. It is theorized that the river's name is derived from Proto-Indo-European *mori: "waters", or indeed any word denoting water or a marsh; the German name for Moravia is Mähren, again from the river's German name March. Interestingly, this might hint at a different etymology, as march is a term used in the Medieval times for an outlying territory, a border or a frontier. Moravia occupies most of the eastern part of the Czech Republic. Moravian territory is strongly determined, in fact, as the Morava river basin, with strong effect of mountains in the west and in the east, where all the rivers rise.
Moravia occupies an exceptional position in Central Europe. All the highlands in the west and east of this part of Europe run west-east, therefore form a kind of filter, making north-south or south north movement more difficult. Only Moravia with the depression of the westernmost Outer Subcarpathia, 14–40 kilometers wide, between the Bohemian Massif and the Outer Western Carpathians, provides a comfortable connection between the Danubian and Polish regions, this area is thus of great importance in terms of the possible migration routes of large mammals – both as regards periodically recurring seasonal migrations triggered by climatic oscillations in the prehistory, when permanent settlement started. Moravia borders Bohemia in the west, Lower Austria in the south, Slovakia in the southeast, Poland shortly in the north, Czech Silesia in the northeast, its natural boundary is formed by the Sudetes mountains in the north, the Carpathians in the east and the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands in the west.
The Thaya river meanders along the border with Austria and the tripoint of Moravia and Slovakia is at the confluence of the Thaya and Morava rivers. The northeast border with Silesia runs along the Moravice and Ostravice rivers. Between 1782–1850, Moravia included a small portion of the former province of Silesia – the Austrian Silesia. Today Moravia including the South Moravian Region, the Zlín Region, vast majority of the Olomouc Region, southeastern half of the Vysočina Region and parts of the Moravian-Silesian and South Bohemian regions. Geologically, Moravia covers a transitive area between the Bohemian Massif and the Carpathians, between the Danube basin and the North European Plain, its core geomorphological features are three wide valleys, namely the Dyje-Svratka Valley, the Upper Morava Valley and the Lower Morava Valley. The first two form the westernmost part of the Outer Subcarpathia, the last is the northernmost part of the Vienna Basin; the valleys surround the low range of Central Moravian Carpathians.
The highest mountains of Moravia are situated on its northern border in Hrubý Jeseník, the highest peak is Praděd. Second highest is the massive of Králický Sněžník the third are the Moravian-Silesian Beskids at the east, with Smrk, south from here Javorníky; the White Carpathians along the southeastern border rise up to 970 m at Velká Javořina. The spacious, but moderate Bohemian-Moravian Highlands on the west reach 837 m at Javořice; the fluvial system of Moravia is cohesive, as the region border is similar to the watershed of the Morava river, thus the entire area is drained by a single stream. Morava's far biggest tributaries are Thaya from Bečva. Morav
Lesser Poland
Lesser Poland known by its Polish name Małopolska, is a historical region of Poland. It should not be confused with the modern Lesser Poland Voivodeship, which covers only the south-western part of Lesser Poland. Historical Lesser Poland was much bigger than the current voivodeship, it reached from Bielsko-Biała in the south-west as far as to Siedlce in the north-east. It consisted of the three voivodeships of Sandomierz and Lublin, it comprised 60,000 km2 in area. Its landscape is hilly, with the Carpathian Mountains in the south, it has been noted for rich nobility. In the wider sense, Lesser Poland from the 14th century encompassed Red Ruthenia. From the 16th century it included Podlachia and parts of modern Ukraine. In the era of partitions, the southern part, known as Galicia, was sometimes called Lesser Poland; as a result of this long-lasting division, many inhabitants of the northern part of the pre-partition region of Poland do not recognize their Lesser Polish identity. However, while Lublin was declared an independent Voivodeship as early as 1474, it still has speakers of the Lesser Polish dialect.
In addition, it has various local traditions as well as cuisine that have been carried forward since the time of Lesser Poland. Lesser Poland lies in the area of the upper confluence of the Vistula river and covers a large upland, including the Świętokrzyskie Mountains with the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland further west, Małopolska Upland, Sandomierz Basin, Lublin Upland. Unlike other historical parts of the country, such as Kujawy, Podlachia, Pomerania, or Greater Poland, Lesser Poland is hilly, with Poland's highest peak, located within the borders of the province. Flat are northern and central areas of the province – around Tarnobrzeg, Stalowa Wola and Siedlce valleys of the main rivers – the Vistula, the Pilica, the San. Apart from Rysy, there are several other peaks located in the province – Pilsko, Babia Góra, Turbacz, as well as Łysica in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains. Southern part of the province is covered by the Carpathian Mountains, which are made of smaller ranges, such as Pieniny and Beskidy.
Whole area is located in the Vistula Basin, with the exception of western and southern parts, belonging to the Odra and Dunaj Basins. Main rivers of the province are the Vistula, upper Warta, Soła, Raba, Wisłok, Wisłoka, Wieprz, Nida, Kamienna and Pilica. Major lakes of the province are: Lake Rożnów, Lake Czchów, Lake Dobczyce, Lake Czorsztyn, Lake Czaniec, Lake Międzybrodzie, Lake Klimkówka and Żywiec Lake. Most of them are man-made reservoirs. Lesser Poland stretches from the Carpathians in the south to Liwiec rivers to the north, it borders Mazovia to the north, Podlaskie to the northeast, Red Ruthenia to the east, Slovakia to the south, Silesia to the west, Greater Poland to the northwest. The region is divided between Polish voivodeships – Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Silesian Voivodeship, Podkarpackie Voivodeship, Masovian Voivodeship, Łódź Voivodeship, Lublin Voivodeship. In Silesian Voivodeship, the border between Silesia and Lesser Poland is easy to draw, because with few exceptions, it goes along boundaries of local counties.
In the south, it goes along western boundary of ancient Duchy of Teschen, with the borderline along the Biała river, where Zwardoń, Milówka, Rajcza are in Lesser Poland. Bielsko-Biała is a city made of two parts – Lesser Poland's Biala, makes eastern half of the city, only in 1951 it merged with Silesian Bielsko. Further north, the border goes along western boundaries of cities of Jaworzno, Sosnowiec, along the Przemsza and Brynica rivers, it goes northwest, leaving Czeladź, Koziegłowy, Blachownia, Kłobuck and Krzepice within Lesser Poland. From Krzepice, the border goes eastwards, towards Koniecpol, along the Pilica river, with such towns as Przedborz, Drzewica, Białobrzegi, Kozienice within Lesser Poland. East of Białobrzegi, the boundary goes along the Radomka river, to the Vistula. East of the Vistula, the boundary goes north of Łaskarzew and Żelechów, south of Mazovian town of Garwolin, turning northwest. Extreme northern point of the province is marked by the Liwiec river, with both Siedlce, Łuków being part of Lesser Poland.
The line goes south, with Miedzyrzec Podlaski being part of historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Radzyń Podlaski as well as Parczew left in Lesser Poland. Between the Vistula and the Bug Rivers, eastern border of Lesser Poland goes west of Leczna, but east of Krasnystaw and Szczebrzeszyn, both of which belong to Red Ruthenia. Further south, Lesser Poland includes Frampol, Biłgoraj, which lies in the southeastern corner on Lesser Poland's historical Lublin Voivodeship, close to the border with Red Ruthenia; the border goes west of Biłgoraj, turning south, towards Leżajsk. Boundary between Lesser Poland and Red Ruthenia was described by Ukrainian historian and geographer Myron Korduba along the line Dukla – Krosno – Domaradz – Czudec – Krzeszów nad Sanem. Lesser Poland border towns were: Rudnik, Ropczyce, Sędziszów Małopolski, Strzyżów, Jasło, Biecz
Queen regnant
A queen regnant is a female monarch, equivalent in rank to a king, who reigns in her own right, as opposed to a queen consort, the wife of a reigning king, or a queen regent, the guardian of a child monarch and reigns temporarily in the child's stead. An empress regnant is a female monarch. A queen regnant possesses and exercises sovereign powers, whereas a queen consort shares her husband's rank and titles, but does not share the sovereignty of her husband; the husband of a queen regnant traditionally does not share his wife's title or sovereignty. However, the concept of a king consort is not unheard of in both classical periods. A queen dowager is the widow of a king. A queen mother is a queen dowager, the mother of a reigning sovereign. In Ancient Africa, Ancient Persia and Pacific cultures, in some European countries, female monarchs have been given the title king or its equivalent, such as pharaoh, when gender is irrelevant to the office, or else have used the masculine form of the word in languages that have grammatical gender as a way to classify nouns.
The Byzantine Empress Irene sometimes called herself basileus,'emperor', rather than basilissa,'empress' and Jadwiga of Poland was crowned as Rex Poloniae, King of Poland. Among the Davidic Monarchs of the Kingdom of Judah, there is mentioned a single queen regnant, though the Hebrew Bible regards her negatively as a usurper; the much Hasmonean Queen Salome Alexandra was popular. Accession of a queen regnant occurs as a nation's order of succession permits. Methods of succession to queendoms, tribal chiefships, such include nomination and ultimogeniture; the scope of succession may be patrilineal, or both. The right of succession may be limited to men only or to women only; the most typical succession in European monarchies from the Late Middle Ages until the late 20th century was male-preference primogeniture: the order of succession ranked the sons of the monarch in order of their birth, followed by the daughters. Many realms forbade succession by women or through a female line in accordance with the Salic law, some still do.
No queen regnant ruled France, for example. Only one woman, Maria Theresa, ruled Austria; as noted in the list below of widely-known ruling queens, many reigned in European monarchies. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK amended their laws of succession to absolute primogeniture. In some cases, the change does not take effect during the lifetimes of people in the line of succession at the time the law was passed. In 2011, the United Kingdom and 15 other Commonwealth realms agreed to remove the rule of male-preference primogeniture. Once the necessary legislation was passed, this means that had Prince William had a daughter first, a younger son would not become heir apparent. In 2015, Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning queen regnant and female head of state in world history. In 2016, she became the longest serving head of state and longest reigning monarch. In China, Wu Zetian became the Chinese empress regnant and established the Zhou Dynasty after dismissing her sons.
The Empress Wu used the title huangdi and in many European sources, is referred to as a female emperor rather than an empress regnant. A few decades earlier in Korea, Queen Seondeok of Silla and Jindeok of Silla developed the term yeowang to refer to themselves, using the title instead of wangbi, translated as "queen consort" and refers to the wife of a king or emperor. Although the Chrysanthemum Throne of Japan is barred to women, this has not always been the case. Again, the Japanese language uses the term josei tennō for the position which would be "empress regnant" in English, with kōgō being the term reserved for an empress consort; the Japanese succession debate became a significant political issue during the early 2000s, as no male children had been born to the Imperial House of Japan since 1965. Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi pledged to present parliament with a bill to allow women to ascend the Imperial Throne, but he withdrew this after the birth of Prince Hisahito in 2006 Queens regnant portal Monarch List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government Order of succession Queen consort Rani Regent Salic law Sultana Women in government Monter, William.
The Rise of Female Kings in Europe, 1300-1800. Yale University Press. P. 271. ISBN 9780300173277.. Media related to Queens regnant at Wikimedia Commons
Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic is an unofficial historical designation for the German state from 1918 to 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar; the official name of the republic remained Deutsches Reich unchanged from 1871, because of the German tradition of substates. Although translated as "German Empire", the word Reich here better translates as "realm", in that the term does not have monarchical connotations in itself; the Reich was changed from a constitutional monarchy into a republic. In English, the country was known as Germany. Germany became a de facto republic on 9 November 1918 when Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the German and Prussian thrones with no agreement made on a succession by his son Crown Prince Wilhelm, became a de jure republic in February 1919 when the position of President of Germany was created. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for Germany was written and adopted on 11 August 1919. In its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism as well as contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War.
Resentment in Germany towards the Treaty of Versailles was strong on the political right where there was great anger towards those who had signed the Treaty and submitted to fulfill the terms of it. The Weimar Republic fulfilled most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles although it never met its disarmament requirements and paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the western borders of the country by abandoning irredentist claims on France and Belgium, but continued to dispute the eastern borders and sought to persuade German-speaking Austria to join Germany as one of Germany's states. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen and General Kurt von Schleicher; the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brüning's policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government.
The Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the "éminence grise" who would keep Hitler under control, using his close personal connection to Hindenburg. Within months, the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency: it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitler's seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation; these events brought the republic to an end – as democracy collapsed, the founding of a single-party state began the dictatorship of the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. Between 1919 and 1933 there was no single name for the new state that gained widespread acceptance, why the old name Deutsches Reich remained though hardly anyone used it during the Weimar period.
To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model and cringed to see the honour of the traditional word Reich associated with it. The Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellor's SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. By 1925, Deutsche Republik was used by most Germans, but for the anti-democratic right the word Republik was, along with the relocation of the seat of power to Weimar, a painful reminder of a government structure, imposed by foreign statesmen, along with the expulsion of Kaiser Wilhelm in the wake of massive national humiliation; the first recorded mention of the term Republik von Weimar came during a speech delivered by Adolf Hitler at a National Socialist German Worker's Party rally in Munich on 24 February 1929—it was a few weeks that the term Weimarer Republik was first used in a newspaper article. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany.
According to historian Richard J. Evans: The continued use of the term'German Empire', Deutsches Reich, by the Weimar Republic....conjured up an image among educated Germans that resonated far beyond the institutional structures Bismarck created: the successor to the Roman Empire. After the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were altered to reflect the political changes; the Weimar Republic without the symbols of the former Monarchy. This left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak and claws and white highlighting. By reason of a decision of the Reich's Government I hereby announce, that the Imperial coat of arms on a gold-yellow shield shows the one headed black eagle, the head turned to the right, the wings open but with closed feathering, beak and claws in red color. If the Reich's Eagle is shown without a frame, the same charg
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