Coat of arms of Lower Saxony

Coat of arms of Lower Saxony
Details
Adopted	1952
Escutcheon	A white Saxon steed ("Sachsenross") on a red background

The coat of arms of the German federal-state of Lower Saxony shows a white Saxon steed ("Sachsenross") on a red background.

It is used on the flag of Lower Saxony.

According to German folklore the banner of Widukind, the last pagan King of the Old Saxons, was a jumping black horse on a yellow field. After the defeat of Saxony and his conversion to Christianity the banner was changed to a jumping white horse on a red field. This device was adopted by Henry the Lion, the Duke of Saxony (r. 1142–1180). The Archbishop of Cologne also used the device on his seal for his possessions which were in the former lands of the Saxons. In the 17th Century these territories in Westphalia came into the possession of the House Saxony-Lüneburg which continued the use of this device. The Sachsenross is also found in the arms of the Kingdom of Prussia, Kingdom of Hanover and Duchy of Brunswick and today used in the contemporary arms of the federal-state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

The white horse became the coat of arms of the Province of Hanover as a province of the greater Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 after it had been in use for both the Duchy of Brunswick and the Kingdom of Hanover since 1814. It was even in use after the abolition of German monarchy after World War I until 1935. From that year, the use of state flags was prohibited by the Nazi government; only the Flag of Nazi Germany was to be used under this totalitarian system where any form of regionalism was shunned upon and the traditional German states were abolished and replaced with the Nazi Party inspired Gau.

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