Coat of Arms of Wroclaw
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The Coat-of-arms of the City of Wrocław is divided into quarters.
In the upper right quarter is the Silesian eagle. The crowned lion rampant in the upper left represents the Kingdom of Bohemia, to which Wrocław belonged to since 1336. In the centre is the head of John the Baptist, patron saint of the city. The letter "W" stands for both "Wrocław" and for the name of the legendary founder of the city, Wrocislaw. Its blazon is: "Quarterly, I: Gules, a lion rampant queue fourché erect facing sinister Argent, armed and langued Or outlined Sable, crowned Or outlined Sable; II: Or, an eagle Sable charged with across its breast and wings a crescent Argent upward pointing with a crosslet Argent attached rising from the middle; III: Or, a capital letter 'W' Sable serifed; IV: head and shoulders of St. John the Evangelist gardant Argent, with youthful face and long hair Argent outlined Sable and with halo Or outlined Sable, issuant from an inverted crown Or outlined Sable. Surmounting all at center a roundel Argent, double-bordered in Sable, charged with St. John the Baptist's head Argent, with beard and hair Sable, semi-gardant turned toward the dexter.".
This particular version of the arms was granted to the city in 1530.
Wroclaw_coa_1938.gif
Coat_of_arms_Wroclaw_1948_1990.gif
In 1938, this coat of arms was abolished, as the Nazi authorities viewed it as too Slavic.
It was replaced by a "purely German" coat-of-arms, a shield parted horizontally, with a black Silesian eagle on the top without Christian crosslet on the breast, and a Iron Cross in red field on the bottom. This was abolished after the Nazis were expelled by the Red Army in 1945.
Wrocław, as part of the People's Republic of Poland, had a different coat of arms to the one used today; the coat of arms used from 1948 to 1990 joined a Silesian black eagle on gold and a Polish white eagle on a red field.
After the collapse of communism, the city decided to revert back to the coat of arms of 1530.