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Condition: Excellent+
Pattern: Luftwaffe
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Product Description: This Cloth German Cross in Gold is a beautiful and scarce award. The backing fabric is made of a fine blue wool with a slightly purple tone, indicating Luftwaffe issue. All of the hand embroidery is intact and virtually perfect. The white roundel shows only minimal age toning. The affixed metal wreath is top quality, with virtually all of the original gilded gold finish still intact, and outstanding detail. The expected and correct die flaw in the “9” of the date is present. The wool backing retains most of the original nap, with some slight moth grazing and nips in some small spots. On the reverse, this Cloth German Cross in Gold retains nearly all of the original black protective backing paper, with a small loss on the lower part. Tiny stitch holes around the edge indicate this piece was likely sewn to a uniform and worn by the recipient. This is a nice example of this iconic decoration. It’s in excellent plus 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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