After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, many East Germans cut the coat of arms out of their flags, as Hungarians had done in 1956 and as Romanians would soon do during the fall of Ceaușescu. The widespread act of removing the coat of arms from the East German flag implied the plain black-red-gold tricolour as symbol for a united and democratic Germany. Finally, on 3 October 1990, as the area of the German Democratic Republic was absorbed into the Federal Republic of Germany, the black-red-gold tricolour became the flag of a reunified Germany. In 1998, the Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship was formed. The duty of this organisation, directly responsible to the federal government, is to examine the consequences of the former East German regime. As its logo, the foundation used an East German flag with the Communist coat of arms cut out.