In our regular in-depth look at the orders, medals, and decorations of the Third Reich, Dietrich Maerz unravels the convoluted story of one of that period’s hotly debated high awards.
In 19421 , a German publication called Die Auszeichnungen des Grossdeutschen Reichs (4) went to print, its author, Dr Heinrich Doehle, setting out the following: “The Führer has reserved the right to award the German Cross in Gold with Diamonds as a special decoration. The awardee will receive a special document, as is the case with the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross.”
Dr Heinrich Doehle oversaw orders and medals in the Reichs chancellery of the Führer and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler. His main task was the sourcing and quality control of all orders and medals handled out of the chancellery, and the above depiction of the German Cross in Gold with Diamonds is the only official representation of this grade of the order. Doehle’s description is also the only one to be found in contemporary publications.
This fourth edition of the publication is also the only one in which this grade of the Order of the German Cross was shown, no further depiction or mentioning of the diamond grade appeared in the last issue in 1945 (note: although this issue went to print it was mainly destroyed during a bombing raid and only very few copies survived. It was later published by Verlag Klaus Patzwall.)2
One can find nothing more than the above quote from Dr Doehle apart from the statement that 20 examples were made and delivered to the Präsidialkanzlei on 12 December 1942 and that the price was RM 2,800 each. This was published in Deutsche Orden und Ehrenzeichen3 and is sourced to a letter in Nimmergut’s archive from the West German Orders Chancellery to Dr Klietmann, dated 10 June 1955. The number of 20 examples is mentioned earlier in Klietmann’s book Deutsche Auszeichnungen4, but astonishingly he does not mention the source of that number, which must be the above-mentioned letter to himself.5
Whether there really were only 20 examples delivered might never be verified, but currently 16 examples are known and documented. Some subject ‘specialists’ have denounced the existence of any more than the three examples held in the Museum of West Point as purely the ‘inventions’ of dealers. Together with the negation of the existence of the well-known and documented Klessheim hoard6, this stance reduces that immense and important find to a small safe containing just three medals.
The ‘War Order of the German Cross’ was instituted on 28 September 1941 and published in the Reichsgesetzblatt Nr. 111, page 593, but there is n
