German awards

During world war one, which german awards were the highest after Pour Le Mérite award ?
Can somebody give me the order of importance ?
Maybe a german member of this forum....
Ludo

[Rick]

I make no claim to being a German awards, or medals, expert. But I think the 'highest' under the PLM would be strictly a subject of from where the aviation (or receipient) originated. That is the Max Josef Order would certainly be Bavaria's highest award, likewise the Saxon St. Heinrich Medal, or the Hohenzollern, or the Baden Silver Karl Friedrich Military Merit Medal, or the Prussian Goldene Military Merit Cross, or the - - - the list grows endless, and you need to specify EXACTLY from which German State your Medal winner came.

If you want to really research this subject, no better set of reference books can be found than the 6 volumes on German Aviation Awards by the late Neal O'Connor, and his 7th volume is due out any time soon. R.

[Rick]

Or, re-reading your question, perhaps you want to know what comes AFTER the PLM?? i.e. the PLM with Oak Leave Clusters, and/or the Order of the Red Eagle?? You got me, as I said, medals and awards are not my bag! Note: No member of the Luftstreitkräfte recieved any of these awards, including MvR. R.

[Scotty]

Rick,

MvR was awarded The Red Eagle Order 3rd Class with Crown and Swords on April 6th 1918. He was the only airman to receive this award. *


Respectfully,

Scotty

Oh boy, that's a tough one! I'm no expert on this but have done a bit of research online. Can't vouch that it's all true but maybe it will help you in your search.

In general, German awards followed the order of precedence of the state the soldier/airman was from. Some states had no regulations at all, others required their awards to be placed ahead of other states, etc. A good overview of the order up to EK2 is at http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/ribbons/ru...regulations.htm

However, this doesn't really answer your question of where Plm fell into the overall scheme. If you only consider Prussian awards, I think the order is:

Black Eagle
Hohenzollern House Order
Plm
Red Eagle
Iron Cross
Crown Order

I'm not exactly sure about it, however. Additionally, I recall reading somewhere that in wartime the Iron Cross held precedence over all other orders - presumably that would include Plm even though the Iron Cross was a more common award.

For most soldiers and airmen, the usual order of receiving awards was EK2, EK1, Knight's Cross of House Hohenzollern, Plm, Plm with oakleaves.

Hope this helps and if you find a definitive answer, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Cheers!
Blues

[tamerlane]

You can see by the replies here that this is not such a simple question. First, you have to clarify if you mean Prussian, or all German states combined. Then you have to take into account the differences in awards between ranks. A Generalleutnant would have different awards than a Leutnant, because many of the orders came in multiple classes.

In the case of aviation recipients, they would have all been junior officers or non-commissioned officers. Junior officers between the rank of Leutnant and Hauptmann would generally receive the following Prussian decorations in sequential order:

Iron Cross, 2nd class
Iron Cross, 1st class
Hohenzollern House Order, Knight with swords
Orden Pour le Merite

After that, there were almost no examples of junior officers being decorated with any higher Prussian awards, other than von Richthofen. His Red Eagle Order, 3rd Class with crown and swords was considered a much higher class than anyone of his rank would ordinarily receive.

If there were other examples of less famous junior officers (maybe some U-boat recipients?) being decorated beyond the PlM, it would most likely have been the Red Eagle Order 4th class with swords, or the crown order 3rd or 4th class with swords, but the PlM outranked all of these in status. There is only one pilot I know of who received any of these awards: Rudolf Windisch was given the Crown Order, 4th class with swords while still a non-commissioned officer. This was done at the order of Kaiser Wilhelm, who made an exception to the rules for a particular act of valor.

Tim