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Condition: Excellent
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Product Description: This Cloth German Cross in Gold is a very nice example of this desirable award. It’s an unissued piece. The beautiful hand-done embroidery is completely intact, with perfect original color. The white disk behind the central embroidered swastika emblem shows only extremely minimal age toning. The Tombak wreath is textbook, with full original detail and some original polished highlights to the gold finish. There is some verdigris to the metal, from age. The backing fabric is a typical field gray wool, as used by the Heer and Waffen-SS. It still has crisp edges, with no moth damage and no stitch holes from having been sewn to a uniform. On the reverse, nearly all of the original thin backing paper is intact. Some small losses near the edges reveal details of the hand embroidery. This Cloth German Cross in Gold is a one-look original award, that remains in excellent condition.
Historical Description: The German Cross in Gold was instituted on September 28th, 1941. The German High Command saw it necessary to create an award which would bridge the gap between the Iron Cross First Class and the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. Once instituted, the German Cross became Germany’s second highest military decoration, second only to the Knights Cross and its subsequent grades. The German Cross was similar to the Knights Cross in regards that the award was not based off of any previous awards in German history. It was a unique creation which also ended with the war. There were approximately 26,000 recipients of the German Cross in Gold. This number, however, does not reflect the total amount of German Crosses produced.
The German Cross was actually not a cross at all. It took on the form of an eight-pointed star, resembling some of the former breast awards of the Imperial era. The award came in two forms, a metal version and a cloth version. The metal version being the most complex of the two, it consisted of five separate pieces being fitted and held together using four to twelve rivets depending on who the manufacturer was. The cloth version follows the exact same design as the metal produced version except the entire cross is cloth with the exception of the laurel wreath still being metal.
Known Manufacturers: Deschler & Sohn, Munchen,;C.E. Juncker, Berlin; C.F. Zimmermann, Pforzheim; Gebruder Godet, Berlin; Otto Klein, Hanau
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