Flag of Posen-West Prussia Border March (Prussian Province)

The Posen-West Prussia Border March was a child of the Treaty of Versailles. When most of the provinces of Posen and West Prussia passed to the restored Polish state in 1920, only fragments were left to Germany: a narrow strip along the west of Posen and the districts around Schneidemühl and Deutsch Krone. They were administered provisionally at first and combined into a province of their own in 1922, with Schneidemühl — today's Piła — as its capital. Some 7,700 square kilometres held only about 330,000 people; the Border March stayed agricultural, poor and cut off from its old economic centres. In 1938 it was dissolved again and divided between Pomerania, Brandenburg and Silesia. Its territory today lies almost entirely in Poland.

Meaning

The flag is not striped but chequered: six fields of equal size in two columns and three rows alternate between black and white, the pattern beginning with black at the top of the hoist. Black and white are the colours of Prussia, and in these colours the provinces of Posen and West Prussia also flew their flags — from their remnants, the parts that stayed German, the Border March was formed. The chequer at the same time sets it apart from the other Prussian provincial flags, nearly all of which consist of two or three horizontal bands. The flag bears no charge, only the six fields. The province did have arms of its own; depictions that place them on the fields do not match the official version — those devices come from the coat of arms and belong there.