Everyone knows them, the three lions of the German state of Baden-Württemberg: from the Baden-Württemberg coat of arms, from the advertisements of political parties or from the 3-Lion Interval (3-Löwen-Takt) campaign for buses and trains of the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment and Transportation. Majestically striding, their jaws open wide and their red tongues stretched out, they stand for ... yes - well, for what?
Their story is an old and long one. They go back to the 12th century, to the age in which the Staufer dynasty also ruled in the Swabian region. A lion can already be found in the coat of arms of Duke Friedrich V of Swabia (1181), a son of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa. As has been proven, three lions above each other were first carried by King Philipp (1196-1198) and then by Heinrich, Duke of Swabia (1216-1220) in their coats of arms. The colors black and gold also originated from this time. Prepared in this way, the Staufers stood under the symbolic protection of the lions, who announced their claim to rule, their strength, their courage and their powerful appearance, but also their generosity to all the world.
In the centuries that followed the memory of the Staufers remained alive and the lions were repeatedly taken up as their symbol. And so it was at Lorch Monastery. Here the lion trio can be found on the slab of the tomb (15th century), below the paintings of the coats of arms in the church chancel and in the portraits of the Staufer sovereigns on the piers in the nave, both from the 16th century. However, in the 20th century as well, the motif of the three lions was not forgotten. In the exhibition 900 Jahre Kloster Lorch (900 Years of Lorch Monastery) a golden Staufer shrine from 1930 is on display with a lid crowned by the three famous lion figures.
In the course of the 19th century the three lions, as representatives of the Staufers, became a sign of their own, regional history and traditions for the population of Baden and of Württemberg. They became a symbol of the striving for national unity. In this sense the three lions are also taken up again in the modern Baden-Württemberg coat of arms. They refer to the great European cultural epoch of the Staufer era and at the same time they stand for their activity in the Baden-Württemberg region, in the consciousness of which the former territories of Franconia, Hohenzollern, Baden, Württemberg, the Palatinate and Vorderösterreich unified in 1952.
The Staufers, whose tomb was once to be at Lorch Monastery in the Rems valley, are still a permanent part of Baden-Württemberg's culture and everyday life today. The history of the three lions is by no means complete!