At 07:43 PM 7/27/99 -0700, David F Schmidt wrote:

Rick Heli posted the following comments about the German flag (schwarz-rot-gold):

...

There are other ways other than flag waving to convey German-ness I bet... how about a beer & sausage (pretzel if you're vegetarian) logo? Genealogy is for the people after all, not the rulers!

I like beer and sausage as much as anyone. However, to say that beer and sausage sum up my German heritage is a joke. That's the same as saying that a cheeseburger can take the place of the American flag.

David, I don't think you mean to say either that a flag can sum up your heritage, do you? I don't think any summing up was intended here at all. Anyway, the real story here is that the field of graphical communications design is a true professional field like any other. One wouldn't go to cousin Lenny for legal advice, one would get an attorney. One shouldn't try to be an amateur designer either when one is not and I think most of us (including me) aren't. Rick

Frankly, I don't understand why some of you are making such a big ado about including the German flag or colors on our webpages. There must be thousands of webpages out there that have flag icons, including the German flag, to denote different languages. How is this any different?

Can someone explain to me what the big controversy is? It seems odd that we fans of German culture, traditions, language, history, etc. somehow are reluctant to post a legitimate symbol of Germany, such as the present German flag, imperial German flag or coat of arms (Adler), etc.

Kann jemand mir aufklaren, warum es ein so grosses Problem waere, die deutsche Fahne oder die deutschen Farben (schwarz-rot-gold) auf unserer Webseiten zu posten? Ich selbst verstehe ganz nicht die Gruenden dafuer. Wenn wir auf diese Symbole nicht stolz sind, warum bemuehen wir uns so um die DEUTSCHE Familienforschung?

David F. Schmidt Walnut Creek, CA, USA dfschmidt@earthlink.net