AN EAGLE PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 22

AN EAGLE PROBLEM

In the process of the merger of Austria and Germany Herr Hitler has yet to face the problem of what to do with the eagles, says the "Manchester Guardian." It was only a few years ago that the double-headed eagle-—minus the crown it once sported—was restored as the heraldic emblem of Austria after being banished by the war. It is scarcely likely that'" the Fuhrer will tolerate the existence of the twoheaded bird side by side with his own single-headed emblem. Prussia acquired her eagle from the ■ Teutonic knights, on whom it was conferred as a special mark of favour by the Emperor Frederick 11, but the origin of the Austrian double eagle is more obscure. It seems to have made its first appearance about the end of the thirteenth century, and it certainly-ap-peared on the coins of Ludwig the Bavarian. But why it was given the unnatural double head is a mystery. The bird, of course, has a venerable ancestry as a mark of power, Persia being credited with its first use as a symbol of the nation. Perhaps when the eagle's Aryan ancestry is proved Herr Hitler may decide to give another jolt to Nature by establishing a tripleheaded bird as the sign of national unity.