ReichskriegsflaggeThe term Reichskriegsflagge (ˈʁaɪçsˌkʁiːksflaɡə, National War Flag) refers to several war flags and war ensigns used by the German armed forces in history. A total of eight different designs were used in 1848–1849 and between 1867–1871 and 1945. Today the term refers usually to the flag from 1867–1871 to 1918, the war flag of Imperial Germany. After Prussia defeated Austria in 1866, the North German Confederation was founded by Prussia in order to replace the former German Confederation in which Austria had been the dominant power.
Reinhard ScheerCarl Friedrich Heinrich Reinhard Scheer (30 September 1863 – 26 November 1928) was an Admiral in the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). Scheer joined the navy in 1879 as an officer cadet and progressed through the ranks, commanding cruisers and battleships, as well as senior staff positions on land. At the outbreak of World War I, Scheer was the commander of the II Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet. He then took command of the III Battle Squadron, which consisted of the newest and most powerful battleships in the navy.
Alfred von TirpitzAlfred Peter Friedrich von Tirpitz (ˈalfʁeːt fɔn ˈtɪʁpɪt͡s; 19 March 1849 – 6 March 1930) was a German grand admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871. Tirpitz took the modest Imperial Navy and, starting in the 1890s, turned it into a world-class force that could threaten Britain's Royal Navy.
Fedor von BockMoritz Albrecht Franz Friedrich Fedor von Bock (3 December 1880 – 4 May 1945) was a German Generalfeldmarschall who served in the German Army during the Second World War. Bock served as the commander of Army Group North during the Invasion of Poland in 1939, commander of Army Group B during the Invasion of France in 1940, and later as the commander of Army Group Center during the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941; his final command was that of Army Group South in 1942.
Alfred von SchlieffenGraf Alfred von Schlieffen, generally called Count Schlieffen (ˈʃliːfn̩; 28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913) was a German field marshal and strategist who served as chief of the Imperial German General Staff from 1891 to 1906. His name lived on in the 1905–06 "Schlieffen Plan", then Aufmarsch I, a deployment plan and operational guide for a decisive initial offensive operation/campaign in a two-front war against the French Third Republic.
