Medal

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

1934 (indexed as 1934)

Level

item

Extent

Medal : sculpture, engraving : bronze, black, white, red ; Ht: 4,3 cm x W: 3,7 cm

Scope & content

Cross of honor for Combattants (with swords) 1914-1918 - also called the Hindenburg Cross. Mounting : Claw support with ring suspender. The ribbon goes through the ring suspender. Medal : The medal is made of bronze or bronzed iron. It is a Maltese cross with a pair of swords crossing the the arms of the cross in the shape of an X. The handles of the swords are at the bottom, while the end of the swords are on top. Obverse : The center of the cross features a wreath of oak leaves tided at the bottom with a ribbon. The wreath is composed of five bunches of three leaves on each side and a pair of laurel berries at each joint. In the center of the wreath is 1914-1918 engraved. 1914 is on top of 1918. Reverse : Plain with the mark PLS. Ribbon : The ribbon's stripes are, from left to right, black, white, black, red, black, white, and black. Narrative: This was a commemorative medal inaugurated on July 13, 1934 by Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg. It was awarded retroactively to the veterans of the Imperial German military who had fought at the front during World War I. It came in three versions: 1. Honor Cross for Combatants (Ehrenkreuz für Frontkämpfer) – for soldiers who fought on the front. (with the swords) 2. Honor Cross for War Participants (Ehrenkreuz für Kriegsteilnehmer) – for non-combatant soldiers. (without the swords) 3. Honor Cross for Next-of-Kin (Ehrenkreuz für Hinterbliebene) (without the swords and a different coloured ribbon). A total of 6,250,000 Crosses were awarded to combatants, 1,200,000 were awarded to non-combatants and 720,000 medals were awarded to next-of-kin. The vast majority were officially distributed in late-1934 to early-1936 and were accompanied by an award certificate. After the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria in 1938, Austrian veterans of World War I were also eligible for the Cross of Honor.

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Genre / form

object

Format

Object / artifact

In the picture

MedalMilitaryWarTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

19141918©jhn.caRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2010-7-32a.jpg
• imageOpen original at source ↗2010-7-32b.jpg