Draft:German Vexillological Association

The German Vexillological Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Flaggenkunde e.V) is a nonprofit association for the study of vexillology. It was founded in 1995 by a group of 18 German vexillologists in the town of Achim. Today the organization has approximately 90 members from across Germany, and is a member of the International Federation of Vexillological Associations.

History
After the reunification of Germany, German vexillologist Arnold Rabbow invited vexillologists and heraldists from the former east and west German states to the city of Braunschweig to what would become the first meeting of the DGF. On November 10, 1990, the first meeting occurred, and two years later on November 21, 1992, a second meeting was held. In 1994, Jörg Karaschewski was approved to create an association by the previous meeting's members, and on the 4th of February, 1995 the German Vexillological Association was officially created by 18 founding members. In the DGF's third meeting the flag created by Jürgen Rimann was approved for use and a statute was adopted.

In the 1995 meeting of the DGF a unanimous vote was cast to apply to the International Federation of Vexillological Associations (FIAV), and on December 27, 1996, the DGF formally applied to become a member association of FIAV. In the time between the application and voting period, Jörg Karaschewski was replaced as president by Andreas Herzfeld. On August 11, 1997, the 17th annual International Congress of Vexillology in Cape Town, South Africa began. On the first day of the congress, the representatives of FIAV's constituent organizations voted to make the German Vexillological Association a full member, with 26 votes in favor, and 1 abstention.

From August 5 to August 10, 2007, the DGF organized and hosted the 22nd International Congress of Vexillology in Berlin under the name FlagBerlin 2007. The congress was hosted in the German Historical Museum's Zeughauskino theater. The Deputy Director General of the museum gave a welcoming speech, and the German Minister of Interior Wolfgang Schäuble delivered a letter of salutations to the participants of FlagBerlin 2007.

Meetings
Since its foundation in November 1995, the DGF has annually hosted a two-day conference called the Deutsches Flaggentreffen (German Flag Meeting), which is open to members and guests. Each meeting is hosted in a different city, and every meeting has a special flag based on the DGF's flag, with the sheet bend symbol replaced by a symbol of the host city. The DFG has had two bilateral meetings with vexillologists from other countries, the first with Dutch vexillologists, and the second with Czech vexillologists. Special conference flags that broke from the standard pattern were created for these meetings.

Publications
The DGF has had three publications across its history, with two still in print. Der Flaggenkurier (The Flag Courrier) is a magazine with articles on vexillogical studies, published twice a year since the DGF's foundation in 1995. DGF-Nachrichten (DGF-News) was a semi-quarterly newsletter with 27 issues from 1996 to 2003. It published small articles and news about the association. In 2004 DGF-Nachrichten was replaced by DGF-Informationen (DGF-Information), another newsletter with a similar purpose.