Propagandaworld Archive

Price: 1.50 euro

Pin with the coat of arms of the DDR.
The national emblem of East Germany featured a hammer and a compass, surrounded by a ring of rye. It was the only coat of arms of a European socialist state with a ring of grain which does not contain a red star.
The hammer represented the workers in the factories. The compass represented the intelligentsia, and the ring of rye the farmers. The first designs included only the hammer and ring of rye, as an expression of the DDR as a communist “Workers’ and Farmers’ state”. The emblem was adopted as the GDR’s national emblem by a law of 26 September 1955, and added to the national flag by a law of 1 October 1959.