1.
Obverse and reverse
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In this usage, obverse means the front face of the object and reverse means the back face. The obverse of a coin is commonly called heads, because it depicts the head of a prominent person. In fields of scholarship outside numismatics, the front is more commonly used than obverse. For prints and drawings with material on both sides the one judged as more significant will be the recto, a convention now exists typically to display the obverse to the left and the reverse to the right in photographs and museum displays, but this is not invariably observed. Following this principle, in the most famous of ancient Greek coins, the tetradrachm of Athens, the obverse is the head of Athena, similar versions of these two images, both symbols of the state, were used on the Athenian coins for more than two centuries. The opposite side may have varied from time to time and this change happened in the coinage of Alexander the Great, which continued to be minted long after his death. The various Hellenistic rulers who were his successors followed his tradition and this script alone style then was used on nearly all Islamic coinage until the modern period. The type of Justinian II was revived after the end of Iconoclasm, without images, therefore, it is not always easy to tell which side will be regarded as the obverse without some knowledge. After 695, Islamic coins avoided all images of persons and usually, the side expressing the Six Kalimas is usually defined as the obverse. The form of currency follows its function, which is to serve as an accepted medium of exchange of value. Traditionally, most states have been monarchies where the person of the monarch, if not provided for on the obverse, the reverse side usually contains information relating to a coins role as medium of exchange. Additional space typically reflects the countrys culture or government, or evokes some aspect of the states territory. Regarding the euro, some regarding the obverse and reverse of the euro coins exists. This rule does not apply to the coins as they dont have a common side. A number of the used for obverse national sides of euro coins were taken from the reverse of the old pre-euro coins of some individual countries. Several countries continue to use portraits of the monarch and the Republic of Ireland continues to use the State Arms. The Chrysanthemum Crest was no longer used after the war, and so, the side on which the date continues to be regarded as the reverse. Following ancient tradition, the obverse of coins of the United Kingdom almost always feature the head of the monarch
2.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
3.
Military awards and decorations
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While the United States Government does not consider all its military awards and medals as being decorations, other countries tend to refer to all their military awards and medals as decorations. Civil decorations awarded to military personnel should not be considered military decorations, although some orders of chivalry have civil, decorations received by police and fire brigade personnel may sometimes be considered alongside military decorations, on which they may be modelled, although they are strictly not military awards. Decorations have been known since ancient times, the Egyptian Old Kingdom had the Order of the Golden Collar while the New Kingdom awarded the Order of the Golden fly. Celts and Romans wore a torc or received other military decorations such as the hasta pura, dayaks wore and still wear tattoos, etc. Necklaces and bracelets were given during the early Middle Ages, evolving into richly jewelled big necklaces, the medal was instituted by Gustav III on 28 May 1789, during his war against Russia. Whilst technically it is active, in reality it as inactive. The next oldest was the Austro-Hungarian Tapferkeits Medaille Honour Medal for Bravery 1789-1792 and this medal was instituted on 19 July 1789 by the Emperor Joseph II. Another of the oldest military decorations still in use is Polands War Order of Virtuti Militari and it was first awarded in 1792. Medals have been forged by many people to make the medal appear more valuable or to make one look like a decorated soldier. Medal forgeries can include, Adding bars, engraving a famous soldiers name on it or creating a new medal. Medal forgery is illegal in most countries and can be punishable by jail time, in most NATO militaries, only the service ribbons are normally worn on everyday occasions
4.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
5.
German Empire
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The German Empire was the historical German nation state that existed from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1918, when Germany became a federal republic. The German Empire consisted of 26 constituent territories, with most being ruled by royal families and this included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. Although Prussia became one of kingdoms in the new realm, it contained most of its population and territory. Its influence also helped define modern German culture, after 1850, the states of Germany had rapidly become industrialized, with particular strengths in coal, iron, chemicals, and railways. In 1871, it had a population of 41 million people, and by 1913, a heavily rural collection of states in 1815, now united Germany became predominantly urban. During its 47 years of existence, the German Empire operated as an industrial, technological, Germany became a great power, boasting a rapidly growing rail network, the worlds strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. In less than a decade, its navy became second only to Britains Royal Navy, after the removal of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by Wilhelm II, the Empire embarked on a bellicose new course that ultimately led to World War I. When the great crisis of 1914 arrived, the German Empire had two allies, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, however, left the once the First World War started in August 1914. In the First World War, German plans to capture Paris quickly in autumn 1914 failed, the Allied naval blockade caused severe shortages of food. Germany was repeatedly forced to send troops to bolster Austria and Turkey on other fronts, however, Germany had great success on the Eastern Front, it occupied large Eastern territories following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. German declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in early 1917 was designed to strangle the British, it failed, but the declaration—along with the Zimmermann Telegram—did bring the United States into the war. Meanwhile, German civilians and soldiers had become war-weary and radicalised by the Russian Revolution and this failed, and by October the armies were in retreat, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, Bulgaria had surrendered and the German people had lost faith in their political system. The Empire collapsed in the November 1918 Revolution as the Emperor and all the ruling monarchs abdicated, and a republic took over. The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, German nationalism rapidly shifted from its liberal and democratic character in 1848, called Pan-Germanism, to Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarcks pragmatic Realpolitik. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany, the war resulted in the Confederation being partially replaced by a North German Confederation in 1867, comprising the 22 states north of the Main. The new constitution and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871, during the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. The second German Constitution was adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, the political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the Reichstag, which was elected by universal male suffrage, however, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas
6.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943
7.
Frederick William III of Prussia
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Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He ruled Prussia during the times of the Napoleonic Wars. Steering a careful course between France and her enemies, after a military defeat in 1806, he eventually and reluctantly joined the coalition against Napoleon in the Befreiungskriege. Following Napoleons defeat he was King of Prussia during the Congress of Vienna which assembled to settle the questions arising from the new. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches, to homogenize their liturgy, their organization, the long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of churches. Frederick William was born in Potsdam in 1770 as the son of Frederick William II of Prussia and he was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers. As a child, Frederick Williams father had him handed over to tutors and he spent part of the time living at Paretz, the estate of the old soldier Count Hans von Blumenthal who was the governor of his brother Prince Heinrich. They thus grew up partly with the Counts son, who accompanied them on their Grand Tour in the 1780s, Frederick William was happy at Paretz, and for this reason in 1795 he bought it from his boyhood friend and turned it into an important royal country retreat. He was a boy, but he grew up pious. His tutors included the dramatist Johann Engel, as a soldier he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792–1794. On 24 December 1793, Frederick William married Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin, Frederick William lived a civil life with a problem-free marriage, which did not change even when he became King of Prussia in 1797. His wife Louise was particularly loved by the Prussian people, which boosted the popularity of the whole House of Hohenzollern, Frederick William succeeded to the throne on 16 November 1797. He also became, in union, the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. He had the Hohenzollern determination to retain personal power but not the Hohenzollern genius for using it, too distrustful to delegate responsibility to his ministers, he lacked the will to strike out and follow a consistent course for himself. Disgusted with the moral debauchery of his fathers court, Frederick Williams first endeavor was to restore morality to his dynasty. He was quoted as saying the following, which demonstrated his sense of duty and peculiar manner of speech, Every civil servant has an obligation, to the sovereign. It can occur that the two are not compatible, then, the duty to the country is higher, at first Frederick William and his advisors attempted to pursue a policy of neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars
8.
Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
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Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was Queen consort of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III. The couples happy, though short-lived, marriage produced nine children, including the future monarchs Frederick William IV of Prussia and she was already well loved by her subjects, but her meeting with Napoleon led Louise to become revered as the soul of national virtue. Her early death at the age of thirty-four preserved her youth in the memory of posterity, the Order of Louise was founded by her grieving husband four years later as a female counterpart to the Iron Cross. In the 1920s conservative German women founded the Queen Louise League, Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was born on 10 March 1776 in a one storey villa, just outside the capital in Hanover. She was the daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg and his wife Landgravine Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt. At the time of her birth, Louises father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and consequently she was not born in a court, the family subsequently moved to Leineschloss, the residence of Hanoverian kings, though during the summer they usually lived at Herrenhausen. Louise was particularly close to her sister Frederica, who was two years younger, as well as with their only brother George, Louise and her siblings were under the care of their governess Fraulein von Wolzogen, a friend of their mothers. After Duchess Charles death, the family left Leineschloss for Herrenhausen, Duke Charles remarried two years later to his first wifes younger sister Charlotte, producing a son, Charles. Louise and her new stepmother became close until Charlottes early death the year after their marriage, the twice widowed and grieving duke went to Darmstadt, where he gave the children into the care of his mother-in-law and Louises godmother, the widowed Landgravine Marie Louise. Their grandmother preferred to raise them simply, and they made their own clothes and she received religious instruction from a clergyman of the Lutheran Church. Complementary to her lessons was an emphasis on charitable acts, and Louise would often accompany her governess when visiting the houses of the poor and needy. Louise was encouraged to give out as much as was in her means, from the age of ten until her marriage at 17, Louise spent most of her time in the presence of her grandmother and governess, both well-educated and refined. Louise loved history and poetry, and not only enjoyed reading Schiller, in 1793, Marie Louise took the two youngest duchesses with her to Frankfurt, where she paid her respects to her nephew King Frederick William II. Louise had grown up into a young woman, possessing an exquisite complexion and large blue eyes. Louises uncle, the Duke of Mecklenburg, hoped to strengthen ties between his house and Prussia, consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the Duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the kings son and heir, Crown Prince Frederick William. The crown prince was twenty-three, serious-minded, and religious and she made such a charming impression on Frederick William that he immediately made his choice, desiring to marry her. Frederica caught the eye of his younger brother Prince Louis Charles, Frederick and Louise were subsequently married on 24 December that same year, with Louis and Frederica marrying two days later. In the events leading up to her marriage, Louises arrival in Berlin, the Prussian capital, caused quite a sensation, all hearts go out to meet her, and her grace and goodness leaves no one unblessed
9.
Napoleonic Wars
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The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
10.
Franco-Prussian War
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The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded. On 16 July 1870, the French parliament voted to declare war on the German Kingdom of Prussia, the German coalition mobilised its troops much more quickly than the French and rapidly invaded northeastern France. The German forces were superior in numbers, had training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology, particularly railroads. The German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I, the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave Germany most of Alsace and some parts of Lorraine, which became the Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of another Franco-German war, along with British apprehension about the balance of power, the causes of the Franco-Prussian War are deeply rooted in the events surrounding the unification of Germany. In the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Prussia had annexed numerous territories and this new power destabilized the European balance of power established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars. France was strongly opposed to any further alliance of German states, in Prussia, some officials considered a war against France both inevitable and necessary to arouse German nationalism in those states that would allow the unification of a great German empire. Bismarck also knew that France should be the aggressor in the conflict to bring the southern German states to side with Prussia, many Germans also viewed the French as the traditional destabilizer of Europe, and sought to weaken France to prevent further breaches of the peace. The immediate cause of the war resided in the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, France feared encirclement by an alliance between Prussia and Spain. The Hohenzollern princes candidacy was withdrawn under French diplomatic pressure, releasing the Ems Dispatch to the public, Bismarck made it sound as if the king had treated the French envoy in a demeaning fashion, which inflamed public opinion in France. They also argue that he wanted a war to resolve growing domestic political problems, other historians, notably French historian Pierre Milza, dispute this. According to Milza, the Emperor had no need for a war to increase his popularity, the Ems telegram had exactly the effect on French public opinion that Bismarck had intended. This text produced the effect of a red flag on the Gallic bull, gramont, the French foreign minister, declared that he felt he had just received a slap. Napoleons new prime minister, Emile Ollivier, declared that France had done all that it could humanly and honorably do to prevent the war, a crowd of 15–20,000 people, carrying flags and patriotic banners, marched through the streets of Paris, demanding war. On 19 July 1870 a declaration of war was sent to the Prussian government, the southern German states immediately sided with Prussia. The French Army consisted in peacetime of approximately 400,000 soldiers, some of them were veterans of previous French campaigns in the Crimean War, Algeria, the Franco-Austrian War in Italy, and in the Mexican campaign. Under Marshal Adolphe Niel, urgent reforms were made, universal conscription and a shorter period of service gave increased numbers of reservists, who would swell the army to a planned strength of 800,000 on mobilisation. Those who for any reason were not conscripted were to be enrolled in the Garde Mobile, however, the Franco-Prussian War broke out before these reforms could be completely implemented
11.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
12.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
13.
Swastika
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The Swastika is an ancient religious symbol originating from the Indian subcontinent, that generally takes the form of an equilateral cross with four legs each bent at 90 degrees. It is considered to be a sacred and auspicious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, Western literatures older term for the symbol, gammadion cross, derives mainly from its appearance, which is identical to four Greek gamma letters affixed to each other. The name Swastika comes from Sanskrit, and denotes a lucky or auspicious object and it has been used as a decorative element in various cultures since at least the Neolithic Age. It is known most widely as an important symbol, long used in Indian religions, the swastika was adopted by several organizations in pre-World War I-Europe and later, and most notably, by the Nazi Party and Nazi Germany prior to World War II. In many Western countries, the swastika has been highly stigmatized because of its association with Nazism, the word swastika has been in use in English since the 1870s, replacing gammadion. Note that the represented by व in Devanagari, and v in the standard IAST transliteration of Sanskrit, is the labio-dental approximant. The sound persists in modern Hindi and other North Indian languages, an English speaker who is unable to correctly form the Sanskrit labio-dental approximant should say swastika rather than svastika. Swastika in Sanskrit means any lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote auspiciousness, or any piece of luck or well-being. It is composed of su, meaning good, well and asti, the phrase swasti therefore means it/he/she is good. The two words spoken together become swasti through sandhi, a process by which sounds modify other sounds spoken close to them, the expression swasti is used as a word on its own, meaning good health or good fortune. The added suffix ka forms an abstract noun, and swastika might thus be translated literally as that which is associated with well-being, corresponding to thing that is auspicious or lucky charm, the word Is recorded first in Vedic Sanskrit. Other names for the symbol include, hooked cross, angled cross or crooked cross, Cross cramponned, cramponnée, or cramponny, in heraldry, as each arm resembles a Crampon or angle-iron. Fylfot, chiefly in heraldry and architecture, gammadion, tetragammadion, or cross gammadion, as each arm resembles the Greek letter Γ. tetraskelion, literally meaning four-legged, especially when composed of four conjoined legs. Whirling logs, can denote abundance, prosperity, healing, chirality describes an absence of reflective symmetry, with the existence of two versions that are mirror images of each other. The mirror-image forms are described as, left-facing and right-facing. The left-facing version is distinguished in some traditions and languages as a symbol from the right-facing swastika. The compact swastika can be seen as an irregular icosagon with fourfold rotational symmetry. Such a swastika proportioned on a 5 ×5 square grid, the Nazi Hakenkreuz used a 5 ×5 diagonal grid, but with the arms unshortened
14.
Hanna Reitsch
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Hanna Reitsch was Germanys most famous female aviator and test pilot, starting in the early 1930s. During the Nazi era she served as a representative for the regime. In the 1960s she was sponsored by the West German foreign office as an adviser in Ghana. She was the only awarded the Iron Cross First Class. She set more than 40 altitude and endurance womens records in gliding before, in the 1960s she founded a gliding school in Ghana, where she worked for Kwame Nkrumah. Reitsch was born in Hirschberg, Silesia on 29 March 1912 to an upper-middle-class family and she had a brother, Kurt, and a sister. She began flight training in 1932 at the School of Gliding in Grunau, while a medical student in Berlin she enrolled in a German Air Mail amateur flying school for powered aircraft at Staaken, in a Klemm Kl 25. She left medical school at the University of Kiel in 1933 to become, at the invitation of Wolf Hirth, Reitsch contracted with the Ufa film company as a stunt pilot and set an unofficial endurance record for women of eleven hours and twenty minutes. In January 1934 she joined a South America expedition to study conditions, along with Wolf, Peter Riedel. While in Argentina, she became the first woman to earn the Silver C Badge, Reitsch became a member of the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug in June 1934 and became a test pilot in 1935. Reitsch enrolled in the Civil Airways Training School in Stettin, where she flew a twin-engine on a cross country flight, Reitsch was given the honorary title of Flugkapitan by Ernst Udet in 1937, after successfully testing Hans Jacobs divebrakes for gliders. In September 1937 Reitsch was posted to the Luftwaffe testing centre at Rechlin-Lärz Airfield by Ernst Udet. She was a test pilot on the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka and Dornier Do 17 barrage balloon-cable fender projects, for which she received the Iron Cross, Second Class, from Hitler on 28 March 1941. Reitsch was the first female pilot and one of the few pilots to fly the Focke-Achgelis Fa 61. Her flying skill, desire for publicity, and photogenic qualities made her a star of Nazi propaganda, physically she was petite in stature, very slender with blonde hair, blue eyes and a ready smile. She appeared in Nazi propaganda throughout the late 1930s and early 1940s, in 1938 she made daily flights of the Fw 61 helicopter inside the Deutschlandhalle, during the three weeks of the International Automobile Exhibition in Berlin. In September 1938 Reitsch flew the DFS Habicht in the Cleveland National Air Races, at the DFS she test flew transport and troop-carrying gliders, including the DFS230 used at the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael. Reitsch was asked to fly many of Germanys latest designs, among them the rocket-propelled Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet in 1942, a crash landing on her fifth Me 163 flight badly injured Reitsch, she spent five months in a hospital recovering
15.
Teutonic Order
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The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem, commonly the Teutonic Order, is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order in the 12th century in Acre. Purely religious since 1929, it still confers limited honorary knighthoods, the order was formed to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land and to establish hospitals. Formed in the year 1190 in Acre, in the Levant, after Christian forces were defeated in the Middle East, the Order moved to Transylvania in 1211 to help defend the South-Eastern borders of the Kingdom of Hungary against the Kipchaks. Starting from there, the Order created the independent Monastic State of the Teutonic Knights, adding continuously the conquered Prussians territory, the Order theoretically lost its main purpose in Europe with the Christianization of Lithuania. However, it initiated numerous campaigns against its Christian neighbours, the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Novgorod Republic. The Teutonic Knights had an economic base, and so hired mercenaries from throughout Europe to augment their feudal levies. In 1410, a Polish-Lithuanian army decisively defeated the Order and broke its military power at the Battle of Grunwald, however, the capital of the Teutonic Knights was successfully defended in the following Siege of Marienburg and the Order was saved from collapse. In 1515, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I made an alliance with Sigismund I of Poland-Lithuania. Thereafter, the empire did not support the Order against Poland, in 1525, Grand Master Albert of Brandenburg resigned and converted to Lutheranism, becoming Duke of Prussia as a vassal of Poland. Soon after, the Order lost Livonia and its holdings in the Protestant areas of Germany, the Order did keep its considerable holdings in Catholic areas of Germany until 1809, when Napoleon Bonaparte ordered its dissolution and the Order lost its last secular holdings. However, the Order continued to exist as a charitable and ceremonial body and it was outlawed by Adolf Hitler in 1938, but re-established in 1945. Today it operates primarily with charitable aims in Central Europe, the Knights wore white surcoats with a black cross. A cross pattée was sometimes used as their coat of arms, the motto of the Order was, Helfen, Wehren, Heilen. The full name of the Order in German is Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem or in Latin Ordo domus Sanctæ Mariæ Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum, thus, the term Teutonic refers to the German origins of the order in Latin. It is commonly known in German as the Deutscher Orden, historically also as Deutscher Ritterorden, Deutschherrenorden, Deutschritterorden or Die Herren im weißen Mantel. However, based on the model of the Knights Templar, it was transformed into an order in 1198. It received papal orders for crusades to take and hold Jerusalem for Christianity, during the rule of Grand Master Hermann von Salza the Order changed from being a hospice brotherhood for pilgrims to primarily a military order. The Order was founded in Acre, and the Knights purchased Montfort, northeast of Acre, the Order also had a castle at Amouda in Armenia Minor
16.
German Army (German Empire)
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The Imperial German Army was the name given to the combined land and air forces of the German Empire. The term Deutsches Heer is also used for the modern German Army, the German Army was formed after the unification of Germany under Prussian leadership in 1871 and dissolved in 1919, after the defeat of the German Empire in World War I. When operating together, the units were known as the Federal Army, Prussia formed the North German Confederation and the treaty provided for the maintenance of a Federal Army and a Federal Navy. Further laws on military duty also used these terms, through these conventions and the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire, an Army of the Realm was created. The contingents of the Bavarian, Saxon and Württemberg kingdoms remained semi-autonomous, the Constitution of the German Empire, dated April 16,1871, changed references in the North German Constitution from Federal Army to either Army of the Realm or German Army. After 1871, the armies of the four kingdoms remained relatively distinct. German Army was used in legal documents, such as the Military Penal Code. Württemberg and Saxon units were numbered according to the Prussian system, the commander of the Imperial German Army, less the Bavarian contingent, was the Kaiser. He was assisted by a Military Cabinet and exercised control through the Prussian Ministry of War, the Chief of the General Staff became the Kaisers main military advisor and the most powerful military figure in the Empire. Bavaria kept its own Ministry of War and General Staff, saxony also maintained its own Ministry of War and the Ministry of War of Württemberg also continued to exist. Command of the Prussian Army had been reformed in the wake of the defeats suffered by Prussia in the Napoleonic Wars, the General Staff system, that sought to institutionalize military excellence, was the main result. It provided planning and organizational work during peacetime and wartime, the Prussian General Staff, proven in battle in the Wars of Unification, became the German General Staff upon formation of the German Empire, given Prussias leading role in the German Army. During wartime, the staff of the Army inspectorates formed field army commands, during World War I, a higher command level, the army group, was created. Each army group controlled several field armies, Germany was divided into army inspectorates, each of which oversaw three or four corps. There were five in 1871, with three more added between 1907 and 1913, the corps consisted of two or more divisions and various support troops, covering a geographical area. The corps was responsible for maintaining the reserves and Landwehr in the corps area. By 1914, there were 21 corps areas under Prussian jurisdiction, besides the regional corps, there was also a Guard Corps, which controlled the elite Prussian Guard units. A corps usually included an infantry battalion, a heavy artillery battalion, an engineer battalion, a telegraph battalion
17.
Balkenkreuz
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The Balkenkreuz is a straight-armed cross that was the emblem of the Wehrmacht and its branches in World War II. It was used by the Heer, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarine, German Balken means beam, bar, so a literal translation of Balkenkreuz would be beam cross or bar cross. Germanys Luftstreitkräfte first officially adopted the Balkenkreuz in mid-April 1918, the IdFlieg directive of 20 March 1918 to all manufacturers states in the first sentence, To improve the recognition of our aircraft, the following is ordered. In paragraph 2, the sentence specifies, This alteration is to be carried out by 15 April 1918. The closing sentence reads, Order 41390 is to be speedily executed and its use resumed, with new standardized dimensions, from the beginning of the Third Reichs Luftwaffe in 1935, as part of the new Wehrmacht unified German military forces founded in mid-March 1935
18.
Bundeswehr
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The Bundeswehr is the unified armed forces of Germany and their civil administration and procurement authorities. The States of Germany are not allowed to maintain armed forces of their own, the Bundeswehr is divided into a military part and a civil part with the armed forces administration. The military part of the defense force consists of the Heer, Marine, Luftwaffe, Streitkräftebasis, Zentraler Sanitätsdienst. In addition the Bundeswehr has approximately 27,600 reserve personnel. 2%, the Bundeswehr are in the process of integrating smaller NATO members Brigades into divisions of the German army. The Bundeswehr is to play a role as anchor army for smaller NATO states. 2 of 3 Royal Netherlands Army Brigades are now under German Command, in 2014 the 11th Airmobile Brigade, was integrated into the German Division of fast forces. Also the Dutch 43rd Mechanized Brigade, will be integrated into the 1st Panzer Division of the German army, with the integration starting at the beginning of 2016, and the unit becoming operational at the end of 2019. The Dutch-German military cooperation are seen as an example for setting up a European defense union, also the Czech Republics 4th Rapid Deployment Brigade, and Romania’s 81st Mechanized Brigade, will be integrated into Germany’s 10 Armoured Division and Rapid Response Forces Division. The name Bundeswehr was first proposed by the former Wehrmacht general and Liberal politician Hasso von Manteuffel, the Iron Cross is its official emblem. It is a symbol that has an association with the military of Germany. The Schwarzes Kreuz is derived from the black cross insignia of the medieval Teutonic knights, when the Bundeswehr was established in 1955, its founding principles were based on developing a completely new military force for the defence of West Germany. In this respect the Bundeswehr did not consider itself to be a successor to either the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic or Hitlers Wehrmacht, neither does it adhere to the traditions of any former German military organization. One of the most visible traditions of the modern Bundeswehr is the Großer Zapfenstreich, the FRG reinstated this formal military ceremony in 1952, three years before the foundation of the Bundeswehr. Today it is performed by a band with 4 fanfare trumpeters and timpani. The Zapfenstreich is only performed during national celebrations or solemn public commemorations and it can honour distinguished persons present such as the German federal president or provide the conclusion to large military exercises. Another important tradition in the modern German armed forces is the Gelöbnis, there are two kinds of oath, for conscripts/recruits it is a pledge but its a solemn vow for full-time personnel. The pledge is made annually on 20 July, the date on which a group of Wehrmacht officers attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944, recruits from the Bundeswehrs Wachbataillon make their vow at the Bendlerblock in Berlin. This was the headquarters of the resistance but also where the officers were executed following its failure
19.
Reichskriegsflagge
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Reichskriegsflagge was the official name of the war flag and war ensign used by the German armed forces from 1867 to 1945. A total of seven different designs were used during this period, the first German imperial war flag was introduced by imperial law on 12 November 1848. The Regent signed it that day, although the National Assembly had already voted for it on 31 July, the law described the commercial and war flag of the emerging new German federal state. The German colours black, red and gold were so popular that it did not seem necessary to them in the constitution of 1849. The flag was used for the Imperial Fleet, also during the battle near Heligoland. This was the first and only battle in which these colours were involved. The Federal Diet had already adopted the German colours on 9 March 1848, by May 1850, the flag was recognized by the USA, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sardinia, Turkey, Portugal, Naples, Spain, Greece and France. The reestablished German Confederation took over the fleet, but sold it in 1852, after Prussia defeated Austria in 1866, the North German Confederation was founded by Prussia in order to replace the former German Confederation in which Austria had been the dominant power. The new Confederation eventually became the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War, therefore, the North German and eventually Imperial German flags prominently featured the Prussian colours as well as symbols like the Prussian eagle and the Iron Cross. And while seafaring was the domain of the Hanse in Germany, virtually all of the 19th century German coastline. Prince Adalbert of Prussia, the commander-in-chief of the North German Navy, was commissioned with finding the design of the new war ensign. He used his old ideas to design the new North German war ensign with heavy involvement of the Prussian King, leading to numerous changes, the flag that was finally adopted became the war ensign of the German Empire after its founding, similar to the North German merchant ensign. The German war flag, which was changed two times during the Wilhelmine Period, was in common use in World War I. It continued to have Prussias national colours of black and white, the eagle of Prussia, in 1919, the flags of Imperial Germany were scrapped and replaced by those of the Weimar Republic, black-red-gold tricolour. German nationalists, such as the Freikorps and later the Nazis and this included the 1920 attempt to overthrow the Weimar government, known as the Kapp Putsch. Designed personally by Adolf Hitler, this served the Heer and the Luftwaffe as their War Flag. New recruits in the part of World War II were sworn in on this flag. The flag had to be formally hoisted every morning and lowered every evening and these hoisting and lowering ceremonies took the form of either an ordinary or a ceremonial flag parade
20.
Flag of Prussia
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The state of Prussia had its origins in the separate lands of the Margraviate of Brandenburg and of the Duchy of Prussia. The Margraviate of Brandenburg developed from the medieval Northern March of the Holy Roman Empire, the Duchy of Prussia originated in 1525 when Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the Hohenzollerns, secularized the eastern lands of the Teutonic Knights as a Polish fief. The Kingdom of Prussia formed when Elector Frederick III assumed the title of Frederick I, King in Prussia, on 18 January 1701. Hohenzollern monarchical rule of Prussia ceased in 1918 after the fall of the German Empire in the aftermath of World War I, the Allied Control Council decreed the formal abolition of the state of Prussia in 1947 following World War II. The Prussian national and merchant flag was originally a simple black-white-black flag issued on May 22,1818, but this was replaced on March 12,1823 with a new flag. The revised one was parted black, white, and black, showing in the white stripe the eagle with a blue orb bound in gold, on its breast were the intertwined initials FR for Fridericus Rex. The axis of the eagle is at 2/5 of the total length. The Prussian war flag, adopted November 28,1816, was originally swallow-tailed for one fifth of the total length, at two fifths it showed the Prussian eagle. In the canton the Iron Cross was placed, the Iron Cross was established in 1813 during the war against Napoleon I as a decoration for courageous common soldiers. It was renewed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and in World War I and it also appeared in the canton of the war flag of the German Empire. The royal standard of Prussia showed the Iron Cross charged with the shield, on the blades of the cross is the motto Gott mit uns. Between the arms were Prussian eagles along the edges and a crown in carré with them. After the German Revolution of 1918–19, the Prussian state was slow to adapt its heraldry to republican forms, only July 11,1921 new arms were decreed by the Prussian prime minister. The gothic eagle made way for the more natural-looking flying one, on December 12,1921, the Ministry of State decreed that the Prussian flag was to be only black and white. The Germany national football team home dress has always been a white jersey and black shorts, Coat of arms of Germany Coat of arms of Prussia Flag of Buenos Aires List of German flags Historical Flags at Flags of the World
21.
Flag of Germany
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The flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany, black, red, and gold. The flag was first adopted as the flag of modern Germany in 1919. Germany has two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red, which have played an important role in the history of Germany. The black-red-gold tricolour first appeared in the early 19th century and achieved prominence during the 1848 Revolutions, the short-lived Frankfurt Parliament of 1848–1850 proposed the tricolour as a flag for a united and democratic German state. With the formation of the Weimar Republic after World War I, following World War II, the tricolour was designated as the flag of both West and East Germany in 1949. The two flags were identical until 1959, when the East German flag was augmented with the coat of arms of East Germany, since reunification on 3 October 1990, the black-red-gold tricolour has become the flag of reunified Germany. After the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation adopted a tricolour of black-white-red as its flag and this flag later became the flag of the German Empire, formed following the unification of Germany in 1871, and was used until 1918. The colours of the flag are associated with the republican democracy formed after World War I. There are many theories in regarding the origins of the colour scheme used in the 1848 flag. Another claim goes back to the uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps, comprising mostly university students, the German national flag or Bundesflagge, containing only the black-red-gold tricolour, was introduced as part of the German constitution in 1949. Following the creation of government and military flags in later years. The government flag of Germany is officially known as the Dienstflagge der Bundesbehörden or Bundesdienstflagge for short, introduced in 1950, the government flag is the civil flag defaced with the Bundesschild, which overlaps with up to one fifth of the black and gold bands. The government flag may only be used by government authorities and its use by others is an offence. However, public use of similar to the Bundesdienstflagge is tolerated. In addition to the horizontal format, many public buildings in Germany use vertical flags. Most town halls fly their town flag together with the flag in this way. The proportions of these flags are not specified. When hung like a banner or draped, the band should be on the left
22.
Prussian Army
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The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power, the Prussian Army had its roots in the core mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Elector Frederick William developed it into a standing army, while King Frederick William I of Prussia dramatically increased its size. The army had become outdated by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, conservatives halted some of the reforms, however, and the Prussian Army subsequently became a bulwark of the conservative Prussian government. In the 19th century the Prussian Army fought successful wars against Denmark, Austria and France, allowing Prussia to unify Germany, the Prussian Army formed the core of the Imperial German Army, which was replaced by the Reichswehr after World War I. The army of Prussia grew out of the armed forces created during the reign of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. Hohenzollern Brandenburg-Prussia had primarily relied upon Landsknecht mercenaries during the Thirty Years War, Swedish and Imperial forces occupied the country. In the spring of 1644, Frederick William started building an army through conscription to better defend his state. By 1643–44, the army numbered only 5,500 troops. The electors confidant Johann von Norprath recruited forces in the Duchy of Cleves and organized an army of 3,000 Dutch, garrisons were also slowly augmented in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia. Frederick William sought assistance from France, the rival of Habsburg Austria. He based his reforms on those of Louvois, the War Minister of King Louis XIV of France, the growth of his army allowed Frederick William to achieve considerable territorial acquisitions in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, despite Brandenburgs relative lack of success during the war. The provincial estates desired a reduction in the size during peacetime. In the 1653 Brandenburg Recess between Frederick William and the estates of Brandenburg, the nobility provided the sovereign with 530,000 thalers in return for affirmation of their privileges, the Junkers thus cemented their political power at the expense of the peasantry. Once the elector and his army were strong enough, Frederick William was able to suppress the estates of Cleves, Mark, Frederick William attempted to professionalize his soldiers during a time when mercenaries were the norm. Acts of violence by officers against civilians resulted in decommission for a year, Field Marshals of Brandenburg-Prussia included Derfflinger, John George II, Spaen and Sparr. The electors troops traditionally were organized into disconnected provincial forces, in 1655, Frederick William began the unification of the various detachments by placing them under the overall command of Sparr. Unification also increased through the appointment of Generalkriegskommissar Platen as head of supplies and these measures decreased the authority of the largely mercenary colonels who had been so prominent during the Thirty Years War
23.
German Campaign of 1813
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The German Campaign was fought in 1813. This was the factor in the outbreak of the German Campaign the following year. The Spring Campaign between members of the Sixth Coalition and the First French Empire ended inconclusively with a summer truce. Via the Trachenberg Plan, developed during a period of ceasefire in the summer of 1813, in the following Autumn Campaign, Austria eventually sided with the coalition, thwarting Napoleons hopes of reaching a separate agreement with the major powers Austria and Russia. The Coalition allies now had a numerical superiority, which they eventually brought to bear on Napoleons main forces. The high point of allied strategy was the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813 and this completely broke Napoleons power to the east of the river Rhine. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and Louis XVIII regained the French Throne, the war came to a formal end with the Treaty of Paris in November 1814. They advocated limitations to the princes of Germany and a joint effort by all Germans to eject the French. From 1810 Arndt and Jahn asked high-ranking figures in Prussian society again and again to prepare such an uprising, Jahn himself organised the German League and made a major contribution to the founding of the Lützow Free Corps. These forerunners took part in the outbreak of hostilities in Germany, even before the German Campaign, there had been uprisings against the French troops occupying Germany – these had broken out from 1806 onwards in Hesse and in 1809 in the Tyrolean Rebellion. These uprisings intensified in the year under Wilhelm von Dörnberg, the initiator and commander-in-chief of the Hessian uprising. This was the factor in the outbreak of the German Campaign the following year. On 17 March 1813 – the day Alexander I of Russia arrived in the Hoflager of Frederick William III of Prussia – Prussia declared war on France. On 20 March 1813 the Schlesische privilegierte Zeitung newspaper published Fredericks speech entitled An Mein Volk, delivered on 17 March and calling for a war of liberation. Already busy with maintaining naval supremacy and fighting the Peninsular War, Great Britain did not take any part in the German campaign. The Convention of Tauroggen became the starting-point of Prussias regeneration, meanwhile Napoleon in Paris had been organizing a fresh army for the reconquest of Prussia. Levies were also made with rigorous severity in the states of the Rhine Confederation, on 25 April Napoleon reached Erfurt and assumed the chief command. On this day his troops stood in the following positions, meanwhile the Russians and Prussians had concentrated all available men and were moving on an almost parallel line, but somewhat to the south of the direction taken by the French
24.
Karl Friedrich Schinkel
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Karl Friedrich Schinkel was a Prussian architect, city planner, and painter who also designed furniture and stage sets. Schinkel was one of the most prominent architects of Germany and designed both neoclassical and neogothic buildings and his most famous buildings are found in and around Berlin. Schinkel was born in Neuruppin, Margraviate of Brandenburg, when he was six, his father died in the disastrous Neuruppin fire of 1787. He became a student of architect Friedrich Gilly and his father, David Gilly, after returning to Berlin from his first trip to Italy in 1805, he started to earn his living as a painter. When he saw Caspar David Friedrichs painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog at the 1810 Berlin art exhibition he decided that he would never reach such mastery of painting, after Napoleons defeat, Schinkel oversaw the Prussian Building Commission. From 1808 to 1817 Schinkel renovated and reconstructed Schloss Rosenau, Coburg and he also rebuilt the ruins of Chorin Abbey. He believed that in order to avoid sterility and have a soul, a building must contain elements of the poetic and the past and his most famous extant buildings are found in and around Berlin. He also carried out improvements to the Crown Princes Palace and to Schloss Charlottenburg, Schinkel was also responsible for the interior decoration of a number of private Berlin residences. Later, Schinkel moved away from classicism altogether, embracing the Neo-Gothic in his Friedrichswerder Church, Schinkel died in Berlin, Province of Brandenburg. Schinkel, however, is noted as much for his theoretical work and these and other designs may be studied in his Sammlung architektonischer Entwürfe and his Werke der höheren Baukunst. He also designed the famed Iron Cross medal of Prussia, with essays by Kurt W. Forster and Wolfgang Pehnt, ISBN 0-86559-105-9. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-88221-866-4, die Geschichte vom Leben und Sterben des Baumeisters Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Christoph von Wolzogen, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Unter dem bestirnten Himmel, edition Fichter, Frankfurt 2016, ISBN 978-3-943856-33-0. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Schinkel, Karl Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, The Last Great Architect. Prefatory essay from Collection of Architectural Designs including those designs which have been executed and objects whose execution was intended by Karl Friedrich Schinkel
25.
Christian cross variants
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This is a list of Christian cross variants. The Christian cross, with or without a figure of Christ included, is the religious symbol of Christianity. A cross with figure of Christ affixed to it is termed a crucifix, the term Greek cross designates a cross with arms of equal length, as in a plus sign, while the term Latin cross designates a cross with an elongated descending arm. Numerous other variants have developed during the medieval period. Christian crosses are used widely in churches, on top of buildings, on bibles, in heraldry, in personal jewelry, on hilltops. Crosses are a prominent feature of Christian cemeteries, either carved on gravestones or as sculpted stelae, roman Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran depictions of the cross are often crucifixes, in order to emphasize that it is Jesus that is important, rather than the cross in isolation. Large crucifixes are a prominent feature of some Lutheran churches, as illustrated in the article Rood, several Christian cross variants are available in computer-displayed text. The Latin cross symbol is included in the character set as 271D. For others, see Religious and political symbols in Unicode, basic variants, or early variants widespread since antiquity
26.
Cross potent
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A cross potent, also known as a crutch cross, is a form of heraldic cross with crossbars or crutches at the four ends. In German, it is known as a Krückenkreuz, potent is an old word for a crutch, from a late Middle English alteration of Old French potence crutch, from Latin potentia power. The term potent is used in heraldic terminology to describe a T shaped alteration of vair. The cross potent already appeared in Neolithic petroglyphs, dating back to 2500 BC, in Old Persian, the sign stood for *maguš magician, magi. It may have been borrowed into Chinese as the character 巫, pronounced *myag in Old Chinese, now known as the Jerusalem cross, it remained in use as the coat of arms and flag of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Upon the passage of the 1924 Schilling Act it was used as a symbol of the Austrian First Republic. Today the cross potent is used by many, mostly Roman Catholic, Scouting and Guiding organisations in their logos and it is currently used in the coats of arms of the Santa Cruz Department in Bolivia, and of the Wingolf Christian student fraternities in Germany, Austria and Estonia
27.
Quadriga
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A quadriga is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast. It was raced in the Ancient Olympic Games and other contests and it is represented in profile as the chariot of gods and heroes on Greek vases and in bas-relief. The quadriga was adopted in ancient Roman chariot racing, quadrigas were emblems of triumph, Victory and Fame often are depicted as the triumphant woman driving it. In classical mythology, the quadriga is the chariot of the gods, Apollo was depicted driving his quadriga across the heavens, delivering daylight, the word quadriga may refer to the chariot alone, the four horses without it, or the combination. Originally erected in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, possibly on a triumphal arch, venetian Crusaders looted these sculptures in the Fourth Crusade and placed them on the terrace of St Marks Basilica. In 1797, Napoleon carried the quadriga off to Paris, due to the effects of atmospheric pollution, the original quadriga was retired to a museum and replaced with a replica in the 1980s. Located atop the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, it was seized by Napoleon during his occupation of Berlin in 1806 and it was returned to Berlin by Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher in 1814. Her olive wreath was subsequently supplemented with an Iron Cross, the iron cross was restored after German reunification in 1990. C.1815 - The Carrousel quadriga is situated atop the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, the arch itself was built to commemorate the victories of Napoleon, but the quadriga was sculpted by Baron François Joseph Bosio to commemorate the Restoration of the Bourbons. The Restoration is represented by an allegorical goddess driving a quadriga, two winged Victory figures, each leading a horse, trumpet Columbias arrival. The sculptor was Frederick William MacMonnies and it was sculpted by Daniel Chester French and Edward Clark Potter. 1911-35 - The Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome, Italy features two statues of goddess Victoria riding on quadrigas,1912 - The Wellington Arch Quadriga is situated atop the Wellington Arch in London, England. It was designed by Adrian Jones, the sculpture shows a small boy leading the quadriga, with Peace descending upon it from heaven. 1919-23 - The former Banco di Bilbao headquarters at no.16 Calle de Alcalá in Madrid, now part of Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, the building was designed by Ricardo Bastida, with the sculptor of the chariot Higinio Basterras, and other sculptures by Quentin de la Torre. The charioteers are helmeted men standing on the handrails of the chariots, height to plinth, about 87 feet. 2002 - The Grand Theatre, Warsaw features a quadriga reflecting the original Antonio Corazzis 1833 plans for the building, horses of Saint Mark in Venice, remnants of a quadriga of Constantinople taken by Enrico Dandolo. Trigarium Troika Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Quadriga, university of Chicago Quadriga Berlin. de, Brandenburger Tor, Pariser Platz, Quadriga
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Brandenburg Gate
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The Brandenburg Gate is an 18th-century neoclassical monument in Berlin, and one of the best-known landmarks of Germany. It is built on the site of a city gate that marked the start of the road from Berlin to the town of Brandenburg an der Havel. It is located in the part of the city centre of Berlin within Mitte, at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße. One block to the stands the Reichstag building, which houses the German parliament. The gate is the entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace, having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin. During the post-war Partition of Germany, the gate was isolated, the area around the gate was featured most prominently in the media coverage of the tearing down of the wall in 1989, and the subsequent German reunification in 1990. Georgen Tor, Stralower Tor, Cöpenicker Tor, Neues Tor, relative peace, a policy of religious tolerance, and status as capital of the Kingdom of Prussia facilitated the growth of the city. The Brandenburg Gate was not part of the old fortifications, but one of 18 gates within the Berlin Customs Wall, erected in the 1730s, including the old fortified city, the new gate was commissioned by Frederick William II of Prussia to represent peace. The gate consists of twelve Doric columns, six to each side, citizens originally were allowed to use only the outermost two on each side. Atop the gate is a Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, the new gate was originally named the Peace Gate and the goddess is Eirene, the goddess of peace. The gates design is based upon the Propylaea, the gateway to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, the gate was the first element of Athens on the River Spree by architect Langhans. The Brandenburg Gate has played different political roles in German history, after the 1806 Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, Napoleon was the first to use the Brandenburg Gate for a triumphal procession, and took its Quadriga to Paris. After Napoleons defeat in 1814 and the Prussian occupation of Paris by General Ernst von Pfuel, the Quadriga faces east, as it did when it was originally installed in 1793. Only the royal family was allowed to pass through the archway, as well as members of the Pfuel family. The Kaiser granted this honour to the family in gratitude to Ernst von Pfuel, in addition, the central archway was also used by the coaches of ambassadors on the single occasion of their presenting their letters of credence to council. When the Nazis ascended to power, they used the gate as a party symbol, the gate survived World War II and was one of the damaged structures still standing in the Pariser Platz ruins in 1945. The gate was damaged with holes in the columns from bullets
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Laurus nobilis
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Laurus nobilis is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glabrous leaves, in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. It is native to the Mediterranean region and is used as bay leaf for seasoning in cooking and its common names include bay laurel, sweet bay, bay, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree or simply laurel. Laurus nobilis figures prominently in classical Greek, Roman, and Biblical culture, the laurel is an evergreen shrub or small tree, variable in size and sometimes reaching 7–18 metres tall. The genus Laurus includes four accepted species, whose diagnostic key characters often overlap, the bay laurel is dioecious, with male and female flowers on separate plants. Each flower is pale yellow-green, about 1 cm diameter, the leaves are glabrous, 6–12 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, with an entire margin. On some leaves the margin undulates, the fruit is a small, shiny black berry-like drupe about 1 cm long that contains one seed. A recent study found considerable genetic diversity within L. nobilis, Laurus nobilis is a widespread relic of the laurel forests that originally covered much of the Mediterranean Basin when the climate of the region was more humid. With the drying of the Mediterranean during the Pliocene era, the forests gradually retreated. The most abundant component found in essential oil is 1, 8-cineole. Both essential and fatty oils are present in the fruit, the fruit is pressed and water-extracted to obtain these products. The fruit contains up to 30% fatty oils and about 1% essential oils, the plant is the source of several popular herbs and one spice used in a wide variety of recipes, particularly among Mediterranean cuisines. Most commonly, the leaves are added whole to Italian pasta sauces. They are typically removed from dishes before serving, unless used as a simple garnish, whole bay leaves have a long shelf life of about one year, under normal temperature and humidity. Whole bay leaves are used almost exclusively as flavor agents during the preparation stage. Ground bay leaves, however, can be ingested safely and are used in soups and stocks. Dried laurel berries and pressed leaf oil can both be used as robust spices, and the wood can be burnt for strong smoke flavoring, aqueous extracts of bay laurel can also be used as astringents and even as a reasonable salve for open wounds. In massage therapy, the oil of bay laurel is reputed to alleviate arthritis and rheumatism, while in aromatherapy, it is used to treat earaches. A traditional folk remedy for rashes caused by poison ivy, poison oak, the chemical compound lauroside B isolated from Laurus nobilis is an inhibitor of human melanoma cell proliferation at high concentrations in-vitro
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Wreath
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For the wreath used in heraldry, see torse. A wreath is an assortment of flowers, leaves, fruits, in English-speaking countries, wreaths are used typically as household ornaments, mainly as an Advent and Christmas decoration. They are also used in events in many cultures around the globe. Wreaths have much history and symbolism associated with them and they are usually made from evergreens and symbolize strength, as evergreens last even throughout the harshest winters. Bay laurel may also be used, and these wreaths are known as laurel wreath, the word wreath comes from Middle English wrethe and from Old English writha, band. Wreaths were a used in ancient times in southern Europe. The most well-known are pieces of Etruscan civilization jewelry, made of gold or other precious metals, symbols from Greek myths often appear in the designs, embossed in precious metal at the ends of the wreath. Ancient Roman writers referred to Etruscan corona sutilis, which were wreaths with their leaves sewn onto a background and these wreaths resemble a diadem, with thin metal leaves being attached to an ornamental band. Wreaths also appear stamped into Etruscan medallions, the plants shown making the wreaths in Etruscan jewelry include ivy, oak, olive leaves, myrtle, laurel, wheat and vines. Wreaths were worn as crowns by Etruscan rulers, the Etruscan symbolism continued to be used in Ancient Greece and Rome. Roman magistrates also wore golden wreaths as crowns, as a testament to their lineage back to Romes early Etruscan rulers. Roman magistrates also used several other prominent Etruscan symbols in addition to a golden crown, fasces, a curule chair, a purple toga. In the Greco-Roman world, wreaths were used as an adornment that could represent a person’s occupation, rank, their achievements, the wreath that was commonly used was the laurel wreath. The use of this comes from the Greek myth involving Apollo, Zeus’ son and the god of life and light. When he pursued her she fled and asked the river god Peneus to help her, Peneus turned her into a laurel tree. From that day, Apollo wore a wreath of laurel on his head, Laurel wreaths were used to crown victorious athletes at the original Olympic Games and are still worn in Italy by university students who just graduated. Other types of plants used to make wreath crowns also had symbolic meaning, for example, oak leaves symbolized wisdom, and were associated with Zeus, who according to Greek mythology made his decisions while resting in an oak grove. The Twelve Tables, dating to 450 BC, refer to funeral wreaths as a long-standing tradition, olive wreath was the prize for the winner at the ancient Olympic Games
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Victoria (mythology)
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Victoria, in ancient Roman religion, was the personified goddess of victory. She is the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Nike, and was associated with Bellona and she was adapted from the Sabine agricultural goddess Vacuna and had a temple on the Palatine Hill. The goddess Vica Pota was also identified with Victoria. Victoria is often described as a daughter of Pallas and Styx, and as a sister of Zelus, Kratos, unlike the Greek Nike, the goddess Victoria was a major part of Roman society. Multiple temples were erected in her honor, when her statue was removed in 382 CE by Emperor Gratianus there was much anger in Rome. She was normally worshiped by triumphant generals returning from war, also unlike the Greek Nike, who was known for success in athletic games such as chariot races, Victoria was a symbol of victory over death and determined who would be successful during war. Victoria appears widely on Roman coins, jewelry, architecture, and she is often seen with or in a chariot, as in the late 18th-century sculpture representing Victory in a quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Il Vittoriano in Rome has two. Nike or Victoria was the charioteer for Zeus in his battle to over take Mount Olympus and these represent the spirit of victory rather than the goddess herself. They continued to appear after Christianization of the Empire, and slowly mutated into Christian angels,12 Victoria Media related to Victoria at Wikimedia Commons
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Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars
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The Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars is a war memorial in Berlin, Germany, dedicated in 1821. The monument is located on the Kreuzberg hill in the Victoria Park in the Tempelhofer Vorstadt, the monument was conceived at a time of deteriorating relations between the reactionaries and the reformers of the civic movement within Prussia. The monument is of cast iron, a technique en vogue at the time and its younger socket brick building is faced with grey Silesian granite and was designed by the Prussian architect Heinrich Strack and realised by the Prussian engineer Johann Wilhelm Schwedler. Its centerpiece is a turret of 60 Prussian feet, resembling the spire tops of Gothic churches. This dedication is authored by August Boeckh, who was member of the class of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Frederick William III had rejected three alternative proposals by the philosophical class, in 1813 the defeated and intimidated king, forced into a coalition with France since 1812, refrained to take his chance to shake off the French supremacy in the wake of Napoleons defeats in Russia. Ludwig Yorck, commanding the Prussian units supporting the French, had declared their neutrality towards the Russians without royal accord, in early 1813 irregular units, guerrillas lacking royal accord, formed who swore their allegiance to the fatherland, but not to the king. The hesitant king could not stop this anymore, but only approve it on March 17 in his address An mein Volk, so on 21 March 1819, Frederick Willam III even forbade his subjects to address any further petitions as to fulfilling his promise. The dedication mentions the magnanimosity of the people stood in blatant contrast to the kings reluctance. The ponderous officialese name evoked many alternative names developed for the monument, the monument is located on the 66-metre high top of the Kreuzberg in the Tempelhofer Vorstadt. Between 1888 and 1894 the Victoria Park was laid out around the monument, the monument, topped by an iron cross, became name-giving for the hill it stands on, before mostly called Tempelhofer Berg, but also denoted by many other names in its history. The monument by Karl Friedrich Schinkel has been called the «relatively modest outcome of grandiose plans», however, like many other projects the memorial church never materialised due to lacking money. Already in late 1813 other projects for monuments had been launched by Ernst Moritz Arndt, Karl Sieveking, Johann Heinrich von Dannecker, Leo von Klenze, Schinkel considered for his project to ask the magistrate of Berlin to build a memorial. So like jumping the ship also the initiative for a war memorial did not originate with the king. On 17 March 1813, when the king had jumped on the bandwagon for the wars, he established the military decoration of the Iron Cross, backdated to March 10. He commissioned Schinkel to design the Iron Cross after a royal sketch, on 26 June 1818 Schinkel commissioned the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry to cast the pieces for the monument, including its statues. The foundry estimated costs of thaler 20,646, on 4 September 1818 the king approved the stipulated price of thaler 1,100 and an additional 400 as compensation for fixtures. The adjacent land, measuring 72 Morgen, remained property of Götze, Tietz, duke Charles of Mecklenburg arranged the laying of the foundation stone for 19 September 1818, attended - among others - by Tzar Alexander I, Christian Daniel Rauch and Schinkel
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Kreuzberg (Tempelhofer Berge)
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The Kreuzberg is a hill in the Kreuzberg locality of Berlin, Germany, in former West Berlin. It rises about 66 m above the sea level, on 27 September 1921 the borough assembly of the VIth borough of Berlin decided to name the borough after the hill. Since the 1850s the hill was also nicknamed Monte Cruce or Monte Croce, the Kreuzberg is a natural hill and forms part of the Tempelhofer Berge range stretching along the northern descent of the Teltow Plateau between Schöneberg and the Rollberge in Neukölln. It rises about 66 m above the sea level and 32 m above the northerly adjacent Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley, the Teltow Plateau is a flatly undulating ground moraine landscape. The Kreuzbergs relatively steep northern slope derives from the erosion by running into the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley. On 23 September 1435 Order Master Balthasar von Schlieben of the Knights Hospitaller sold – among others – the Kreuzberg to Berlin-Cölln, after spending much of the day on the Kreuzberg in vain, at about 16,00 h, Electress Elizabeth of Denmark urged her husband to leave. They returned to town, where a thunderstorm started and a lightning killed four horses, on their return the crowd awaited the elector and his entourage and welcoming him laughing. In 1553 Joachim I Nestor ordered to plant vines on the slopes, in 1588 the financial chamber of the city of Cölln recorded for one of the vineyards an output of 13 and a half tuns of red and white wine, amounting to 35 threescore and 45 groats. For 1595 Cöllns financial chamber accounted for the sale of 36 tuns of wine for 144 rixdollars, partially exported to Poland-Lithuania, Saxony, and Sweden. The severe devastations and depopulation by the Thirty Years War caused the death or flight of many a vinitor, entailing the neglection, the slopes became deserted and turned into sandy wasteland. For 1720 a mulberry plantation is recorded, with their leaves needed for the etatist attempts to establish silk production in Brandenburg-Prussia, however, alternative usages of the slopes remained mostly successless, so many slopes became again deserted and turned into wasteland, some owners continued viticulture. Western German wine had meanwhile outdone the local competition, on the Kreuzberg, like on some neighbouring hills, remained vineyards until 1739/1740, when a hefty frost killed most of the vine stock, among them Red Malvasian and Muscateller are recorded. The city surrendered and the confederated troops occupied Berlin for four days between October 9 and 12, during the War of the Sixth Coalition against France, in 1813 Colonel Hermann von Boyen prompted to work sconces south of Runder Berg and the other hills of the Tempelhofer Berge range. Plantations of about 4,000 fruit trees were stubbed and levelled, alone on the Kreuzberg 20 cannons were put up directing towards the approaching French Armée de Berlin under Oudinot. Already in September 1813 the sloppily constructed huts of the citadel collapsed, the semi-circular original access path, measuring a width of 20 Prussian feet, and branching off Methfesselstraße, was already under construction at that time. The adjacent land, measuring 72 Morgen, remained property of Götze, Tietz, in June 1820 the Lärmkanonenschanze was levelled again. For 19 September 1818 Duke Charles of Mecklenburg arranged the laying of the stone for the war memorial projected for the top of the Kreuzberg. The laying of the stone was attended - among others - by the king, Tzar Alexander I, Christian Daniel Rauch
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Kreuzberg
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Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin. The borough is known for its large percentage of immigrants and descendants of immigrants. As of 2006,31. 6% of Kreuzbergs inhabitants did not have German citizenship, the counterculture tradition of Kreuzberg led to a plurality of votes for the Green Party, which is unique among all Berlin boroughs. The local MP Hans-Christian Ströbele is the only Green politician directly elected to the federal Bundestag parliament, Kreuzberg is bounded by the river Spree in the east. The Landwehrkanal flows through Kreuzberg from east to west, with the Paul-Lincke-Ufer running alongside it, other characteristics are the old U-Bahn line of the present-day U1, the Görlitzer Park in SO36 and the Viktoriapark on the slope of the Kreuzberg hill in SW61. Kreuzberg is divided into 2 zones, Östliches Kreuzberg, Westliches Kreuzberg, in contrast to many other areas of Berlin, which were villages before their integration into Berlin, Kreuzberg has a rather short history. It was formed on 1 October 1920 by the Greater Berlin Act providing for the incorporation of suburbs, on 27 September 1921 the borough assembly of Hallesches Tor decided to rename the borough after the homonymous hill. Kreuzberg, literally meaning cross hill, is the point of highest elevation in the Kreuzberg locality, the hill is traditionally a place for weekend trips. It received its name from the 1821 Prussian National Monument for the Liberation Wars by Karl Friedrich Schinkel within the Viktoriapark, except for its northernmost part, the quarter Friedrichstadt, todays Kreuzberg was a very rural place until well into the 19th century. This changed when, in the 1860s, industrialization caused Berlin to grow rapidly and this called for extensive housing – much of which was built exploiting the dire needs of the poor, with widespread land speculation. Many of Kreuzbergs buildings originate from that time and they were built on the streets laid out in the Hobrecht-Plan in an area that came to be known architecturally as the Wilhelmine Ring. Far into the 20th century, Kreuzberg was the most populous of Berlins boroughs even in numbers, with more than 400,000 people, although it was. As a result, with more than 60,000 people per square kilometer, in addition to housing, Kreuzberg was also one center of Berlins industry. Both of these quarters were almost entirely destroyed by air raids during World War II. In remembrance of the old tradition, the Axel Springer press company erected its German headquarters at Kochstraße again, after World War II, Kreuzbergs housing rents were regulated by law which made investments unattractive. As a result, housing was of low quality, but cheap, starting in the late 1960s, increasing numbers of students, artists, and immigrants began moving to Kreuzberg. Enclosed by the Berlin Wall on three sides, the area famous for its alternative lifestyle and its squatters, especially the SO36 part of Kreuzberg. Starting in 1987, there have been violent riots in SO36 on Labour day, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Kreuzberg suddenly found itself in the middle of the city again
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Reichswehr
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The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was united with the new Wehrmacht. At the end of World War I, the forces of the German Empire had mostly split up, many of them joined the Freikorps, a collection of volunteer paramilitary units that were involved in suppressing the German Revolution and border clashes between 1918 and 1923. The Vorläufige Reichswehr was made up of 43 brigades, on 30 September 1919, the army was reorganised as the Übergangsheer, and the force size was reduced to 20 brigades. About 400,000 men served in the armed forces, in May 1920 it was downsized to 200,000 men and restructured again, forming three cavalry divisions and seven infantry divisions. On 1 October 1920 the brigades were replaced by regiments and the manpower was now only 100,000 men as stipulated by the Treaty of Versailles and this lasted until 1 January 1921, when the Reichswehr was officially established according to the limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The Reichswehr was an organisation composed of the following, The Reichsheer, an army consisting of, seven infantry divisions. General Command 1 at Berlin supervised 1st Division, 2nd Division, 3rd Division, general Command 2 at Kassel supervised 5,6,7 and 3rd Cavalry divisions. The Reichsmarine, a navy with a number of certain types of ships. The Reichswehr was limited to an army of 100,000 men. The establishment of a staff was prohibited. Heavy weapons such as artillery above the calibre of 105 mm, armoured vehicles, submarines and capital ships were forbidden, compliance with these restrictions was monitored until 1927 by the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control. Despite the limitations on its size, their analysis of the loss of World War I, research and development, secret testing abroad and planning for better times went on. In addition, although forbidden to have a staff, the army continued to conduct the typical functions of a general staff under the disguised name of Truppenamt. During this time, many of the leaders of the Wehrmacht — such as Heinz Guderian — first formulated the ideas that they were to use so effectively a few years later. Reflecting this position as a “state within the state”, the Reichswehr created the Ministeramt or Office of the Ministerial Affairs in 1928 under Kurt von Schleicher to lobby the politicians. The biggest influence on the development of the Reichswehr was Hans von Seeckt, after the Kapp Putsch, Hans von Seeckt took over this post. After Seeckt was forced to resign in 1926, Wilhelm Heye took the post, Heye was in 1930 succeeded by Kurt Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, who submitted his resignation on December 27,1933. The reduction of the strength of the German army from 780,000 in 1913 to 100,000 enhanced the quality of the Reichsheer because only the best were permitted to join the army
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Weimar Republic
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Weimar Republic is an unofficial, historical designation for the German state between 1919 and 1933. The name derives from the city of Weimar, where its constitutional assembly first took place, the official name of the state was still Deutsches Reich, it had remained unchanged since 1871. In English the country was known simply as Germany. A national assembly was convened in Weimar, where a new constitution for the Deutsches Reich was written, in its fourteen years, the Weimar Republic faced numerous problems, including hyperinflation, political extremism, and contentious relationships with the victors of the First World War. The people of Germany blamed the Weimar Republic rather than their leaders for the countrys defeat. However, the Weimar Republic government successfully reformed the currency, unified tax policies, Weimar Germany eliminated most of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles, it never completely met its disarmament requirements, and eventually paid only a small portion of the war reparations. Under the Locarno Treaties, Germany accepted the borders of the republic. From 1930 onwards President Hindenburg used emergency powers to back Chancellors Heinrich Brüning, Franz von Papen, the Great Depression, exacerbated by Brünings policy of deflation, led to a surge in unemployment. In 1933, Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor with the Nazi Party being part of a coalition government, the Nazis held two out of the remaining ten cabinet seats. Von Papen as Vice Chancellor was intended to be the éminence grise who would keep Hitler under control, within months the Reichstag Fire Decree and the Enabling Act of 1933 had brought about a state of emergency, it wiped out constitutional governance and civil liberties. Hitlers seizure of power was permissive of government by decree without legislative participation and these events brought the republic to an end, as democracy collapsed, a single-party state founded the Nazi era. The Weimar Republic is so called because the assembly that adopted its constitution met at Weimar, Germany from 6 February 1919 to 11 August 1919, but this name only became mainstream after 1933. To the right of the spectrum the politically engaged rejected the new democratic model, the Catholic Centre party, Zentrum favoured the term Deutscher Volksstaat while on the moderate left the Chancellors SPD preferred Deutsche Republik. Only during the 1930s did the term become mainstream, both within and outside Germany, after the introduction of the republic, the flag and coat of arms of Germany were officially altered to reflect the political changes. The Weimar Republic retained the Reichsadler, but without the symbols of the former Monarchy and this left the black eagle with one head, facing to the right, with open wings but closed feathers, with a red beak, tongue and claws and white highlighting. If the Reichs Eagle is shown without a frame, the charge and colors as those of the eagle of the Reichs coat of arms are to be used. The patterns kept by the Federal Ministry of the Interior are decisive for the heraldic design, the artistic design may be varied for each special purpose. The achievements and signs of movement were mostly done away with after its downfall
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Wehrmacht
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The Wehrmacht was the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1946. It consisted of the Heer, the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, one of Adolf Hitler’s most overt and audacious moves was to establish the Wehrmacht, a modern armed forces fully capable of offensive use. In December 1941, Hitler designated himself as commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, the Wehrmacht formed the heart of Germany’s politico-military power. In the early part of World War II, Hitlers generals employed the Wehrmacht through innovative combined arms tactics to devastating effect in what was called a Blitzkrieg, the Wehrmachts new military structure, unique combat techniques, newly developed weapons, and unprecedented speed and brutality crushed their opponents. Closely cooperating with the SS, the German armed forces committed war crimes and atrocities. By the time the war ended in Europe in May 1945, only a few of the Wehrmacht’s upper leadership were tried for war crimes, despite evidence suggesting that more were involved in illegal actions. The German term Wehrmacht generically describes any nations armed forces, for example, the Frankfurt Constitution of 1848 designated all German military forces as the German Wehrmacht, consisting of the Seemacht and the Landmacht. In 1919, the term Wehrmacht also appears in Article 47 of the Weimar Constitution, establishing that, from 1919, Germanys national defense force was known as the Reichswehr, a name that was dropped in favor of Wehrmacht on 21 May 1935. In January 1919, after World War I ended with the signing of the armistice of 11 November 1918, in March 1919, the national assembly passed a law founding a 420, 000-strong preliminary army, the Vorläufige Reichswehr. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were announced in May, the army was limited to one hundred thousand men with an additional fifteen thousand in the navy. The fleet was to consist of at most six battleships, six cruisers, submarines, tanks and heavy artillery were forbidden and the air-force was dissolved. A new post-war military, the Reichswehr, was established on 23 March 1921, General conscription was abolished under another mandate of the Versailles treaty. The Reichswehr was limited to 115,000 men, and thus the armed forces, under the leadership of Hans von Seeckt, though Seeckt retired in 1926, the army that went to war in 1939 was largely his creation. Germany was forbidden to have an air-force by the Versailles treaty, nonetheless and these officers saw the role of an air-force as winning air-superiority, tactical and strategic bombing and providing ground support. That the Luftwaffe did not develop a strategic bombing force in the 1930s was not due to a lack of interest, but because of economic limitations. The leadership of the Navy led by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, officers who believed in submarine warfare led by Admiral Karl Dönitz were in a minority before 1939. By 1922, Germany had begun covertly circumventing the conditions of the Versailles Treaty, a secret collaboration with the Soviet Union began after the treaty of Rapallo. Major-General Otto Hasse traveled to Moscow in 1923 to further negotiate the terms, Germany helped the Soviet Union with industrialization and Soviet officers were to be trained in Germany
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German reunification
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The end of the unification process is officially referred to as German unity, celebrated on 3 October. Following German reunification, Berlin was once designated as the capital of united Germany. The East German regime started to falter in May 1989, when the removal of Hungarys border fence with Austria opened a hole in the Iron Curtain and it caused an exodus of thousands of East Germans fleeing to West Germany and Austria via Hungary. The united Germany is the continuation of the Federal Republic. For political and diplomatic reasons, West German politicians carefully avoided the term reunification during the run-up to what Germans frequently refer to as die Wende, after 1990, the term die Wende became more common. The term generally refers to the events led up to the actual reunification, in its usual context. When referring to the events surrounding unification, however, it carries the connotation of the time. However, anti-communist activists from Eastern Germany rejected the term Wende as it was introduced by SEDs Secretary General Egon Krenz, the capital city of Berlin was divided into four occupied sectors of control, under the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Germans lived under such imposed divisions throughout the ensuing Cold War, into the 1980s, the Soviet Union experienced a period of economic and political stagnation, and they correspondingly decreased intervention in Eastern Bloc politics. In 1987, US President Ronald Reagan gave a speech at Brandenburg Gate challenging Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall that had separated Berlin. The wall had stood as an icon for the political and economic division between East and West, a division that Churchill had referred to as the Iron Curtain. In early 1989, under a new era of Soviet policies of glasnost, perestroika and taken to more progressive levels by Gorbachev. Further inspired by images of brave defiance, a wave of revolutions swept throughout the Eastern Bloc that year. In May 1989, Hungary removed their border fence and thousands of East Germans escaped to the West, however, events rapidly came to a head in early 1990. First, in March, the Party of Democratic Socialism—the former Socialist Unity Party of Germany—was heavily defeated in East Germanys first free elections. A grand coalition was formed under Lothar de Maizière, leader of the East German wing of Kohls Christian Democratic Union, on a platform of speedy reunification, second, East Germanys economy and infrastructure underwent a swift and near-total collapse. While East Germany had long been reckoned as having the most robust economy in the Soviet bloc, the East German mark had been practically worthless outside East Germany for some time before the events of 1989–90 further magnified the problem. Discussions immediately began for a merger of the German economies
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Ribbon
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A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of materials such as silk, velvet, cotton, and jute and of synthetic materials, such as polyester, nylon. Ribbon is used for innumerable useful, ornamental, and symbolic purposes, cultures around the world use ribbon in their hair, around the body, and as ornamentation on non-human animals, buildings, and packaging. Some popular fabrics used to make ribbons are satin, organza, sheer, silk, velvet, the word ribbon comes from Middle English ribban or riban from Old French ruban, which is probably of Germanic origin. Along with that of tapes, fringes, and other smallwares, the essential feature of a ribbon loom is the simultaneous weaving in one loom frame of two or more webs, going up to as many as forty narrow fabrics in modern looms. A loom in which several narrow webs could be woven at one time is mentioned as having working in Dantzig towards the end of the 16th century. Similar looms were at work in Leiden in 1620, where their use gave rise to so much discontent and rioting on the part of the weavers that the states-general had to prohibit their use. The prohibition was renewed at intervals throughout the century. In 1676, under the name of the Dutch loom or engine loom, it was brought to London, in 1745, John Kay, the inventor of the fly-shuttle, obtained, conjointly with Joseph Stell, a patent for improvements in the ribbon loom. Since that period, it has benefited by the applied to weaving machinery generally. Ribbon-weaving is known to have been established near St. Etienne as early as the 11th century, and that town has remained the headquarters of the industry. During the Huguenot troubles, ribbon-weavers from St. Etienne settled at Basel, krefeld is the centre of the German ribbon industry, the manufacture of black velvet ribbon being there a specialty. In England Coventry is the most important seat of ribbon-making, which is also prosecuted at Norwich and Leicester. While satin and other sorts of ribbon have always used in lingerie. This upsurge led to increased ribbon manufacturing as well as new, presently, the North American continent remains the largest importer of ribbon and ribbon derivative products. Inspired by European silk ribbons obtained through trade, Great Lakes, typewriters and dot matrix printers use a cloth or plastic ribbon to hold the ink. Pieces of ribbon are used as symbols of support or awareness for social causes and are called awareness ribbons. Ribbons are used in ceremonies, such as in a ribbon cutting ceremony
40.
William I, German Emperor
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William I, or in German Wilhelm I, of the House of Hohenzollern was the King of Prussia and the first German Emperor, as well as the first Head of State of a united Germany. Under the leadership of William and his Minister President Otto von Bismarck, Prussia achieved the unification of Germany and the establishment of the German Empire. Contrary to the domineering Bismarck, William was described as polite, gentlemanly and, while a staunch conservative, the future king and emperor was born William Frederick Louis of Prussia in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin on 22 March 1797. As the second son of Prince Frederick William, himself son of King Frederick William II and his grandfather died the year he was born, at age 53, in 1797, and his father Frederick William III became king. He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Delbrück, who was also in charge of the education of Williams brother, at age twelve, his father appointed him an officer in the Prussian army. William served in the army from 1814 onward, like his father he fought against Napoleon I of France during the part of the Napoleonic Wars known in Germany as the Befreiungskriege, and was reportedly a very brave soldier. He was made a Captain and won the Iron Cross for his actions at Bar-sur-Aube, the war and the fight against France left a lifelong impression on him, and he had a long-standing antipathy towards the French. In 1815, William was promoted to Major and commanded a battalion of the 1 and he fought under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battles of Ligny and Waterloo. He also became an excellent diplomat by engaging in diplomatic missions after 1815, in 1816, William became the commander of the Stettiner Gardelandwehrbataillon and in 1818 was promoted to Generalmajor. The next year, William was appointed inspector of the VII. and this made him a spokesman of the Prussian Army within the House of Hohenzollern. He argued in favour of a strong, well-trained and well-equipped army, in 1820, William became commander of the 1. Gardedivision and in 1825 was promoted to commanding general of the III, in 1829, William married Princess Augusta von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach after Princess Elisa Radziwill, his cousin whom he had been attracted to, was deemed an inappropriate match by his father. William had been forced to abandon the relationship with Elisa in 1826, Augusta was the daughter of Grand Duke Karl Friedrich von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. Their marriage was stable, but not a very happy one. In 1840 his older brother became King of Prussia, since he had no children, William was first in line to succeed him to the throne and thus was given the title Prinz von Preußen. Against his convictions but out of loyalty towards his brother, in 1847 William signed the bill setting up a Prussian parliament and took a seat in the upper chamber, the Herrenhaus. During the Revolutions of 1848, William successfully crushed a revolt in Berlin that was aimed at his elder brother, the use of cannon made him unpopular at the time and earned him the nickname Kartätschenprinz. Indeed, he had to flee to England for a while and he returned and helped to put down an uprising in Baden, where he commanded the Prussian army
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Wilhelm II, German Emperor
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Wilhelm II or William II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was the eldest grandchild of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and his leading generals, Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff, dictated policy during the First World War with little regard for the civilian government. An ineffective war-time leader, he lost the support of the army, abdicated in November 1918, and fled to exile in the Netherlands. Wilhelm was born on 27 January 1859 at the Crown Princes Palace, Berlin to Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife, Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldest daughter of Britains Queen Victoria. At the time of his birth, his great-uncle Frederick William IV was king of Prussia, a traumatic breech birth left him with a withered left arm due to Erbs palsy, which he tried with some success to conceal. His left arm was about 6 inches shorter than his right arm, historians have suggested that this disability affected his emotional development. In 1863, Wilhelm was taken to England to be present at the wedding of his Uncle Bertie, William attended the ceremony in a Highland costume, complete with a small toy dirk. During the ceremony the four-year-old became restless and his eighteen-year-old uncle Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, charged with keeping an eye on him, told him to be quiet, but Wilhelm drew his dirk and threatened Alfred. When Alfred attempted to subdue him by force, Wilhelm bit him on the leg and his grandmother, Queen Victoria, missed seeing the fracas, to her Wilhelm remained a clever, dear, good little child, the great favourite of my beloved Vicky. His mother, Vicky, was obsessed with his damaged arm and she blamed herself for the childs handicap and insisted that he become a good rider. The thought that he, as heir to the throne, should not be able to ride was intolerable to her, riding lessons began when Wilhelm was eight and were a matter of endurance for Wilhelm. Over and over, the prince was set on his horse. He fell off time after time but despite his tears was set on its back again, after weeks of this he finally got it right and was able to maintain his balance. Wilhelm, from six years of age, was tutored and heavily influenced by the 39-year-old teacher Georg Hinzpeter, Hinzpeter, he later wrote, was really a good fellow. Whether he was the tutor for me, I dare not decide. The torments inflicted on me, in this riding, must be attributed to my mother. As a teenager he was educated at Kassel at the Friedrichsgymnasium, in January 1877, Wilhelm finished high school and on his eighteenth birthday received as a present from his grandmother, Queen Victoria, the Order of the Garter. After Kassel he spent four terms at the University of Bonn, studying law and he became a member of the exclusive Corps Borussia Bonn
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Clasp to the Iron Cross
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The Clasp to the Iron Cross was a metal medal clasp displayed on the uniforms of German Wehrmacht personnel who had been awarded the Iron Cross in World War I. A holder of the 1914 Iron Cross could be awarded a second or higher grade of the 1939 Iron Cross, to permit the two medals to be worn together, a 1939 Clasp would be worn on the original 1914 Iron Cross. It depicted an eagle clutching an oak leaf wreath surrounding a swastika above a trapezoid bearing the year 1939. It was attached to the 1914 Iron Cross medal ribbon through a tunic button, a similar award had been made in 1914 but was quite rare, since there were few in service at that time who held the even earlier 1870 Iron Cross. For the First Class award, the larger but identical clasp, was pinned directly on the upper breast pocket above the Iron Cross 1st class of the wearer and this pin-back clasp was usually awarded in a presentation case. For Führer and Fatherland, Military Awards of the Third Reich
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Grand Cross of the Iron Cross
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The Grand Cross of the Iron Cross was a decoration intended for victorious generals of the Prussian Army and its allies. It was the highest class of the Iron Cross, along with the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class, the Grand Cross was founded on March 10,1813, during the Napoleonic Wars. It was renewed in 1870 for the Franco-Prussian War and again in 1914 for World War I, in 1939, when Adolf Hitler renewed the Iron Cross as a German decoration, he also renewed the Grand Cross. The Grand Cross of the Iron Cross was twice the size of the Iron Cross and was worn from a ribbon around the neck. The later Knights Cross of the Iron Cross, instituted in 1939, was worn from the neck, it was smaller than the Grand Cross. Bogislav Friedrich Emanuel von Tauentzien Ludwig Yorck von Wartenburg, the Iron Cross was renewed on July 19,1870, for the Franco-Prussian War. Nine men received the 1870 Grand Cross of the Iron Cross for service during that war, the Kaiser was supreme commander of the Prussian Army, and Moltke was Chief of the General Staff. The others were senior combat commanders of the Prussian Army, the Iron Cross was renewed again on August 5,1914. Hermann Göring became the recipient of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II when it was awarded to him on July 19,1940. The Grand Cross - when Hitler originally re-instituted it - was supposed to have outlined in gold. Göring - who loved amassing medals - felt that the Grand Cross he received from Hitler was not really grand enough, the original awarded Grand Cross was destroyed in an air raid in 1943. Göring was wearing his one at the time of his surrender in 1945. Shortly before his suicide, Hitler deprived Göring of the Grand Cross because he betrayed by him. Also, Göring had the habit of not wearing the Grand Cross at times. The award case for the 1939 Grand Cross had a red leather exterior, the bottom interior of the case was lined in black velvet. The even higher decoration, the Star of the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, was also re-instituted by Hitler, for Führer and Fatherland, Military Awards of the Third Reich
Eisernes Kreuz (help·info), abbreviated EK) is a former military decoration in the Kingdom of Prussia, and later in the German Empire (1871–1918) and Nazi Germany (1933–1945). It was established by King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in March 1813 backdated to the birthday of his late wife Queen Louise on 10 March 1813 during the Napoleonic Wars (EK 1813). Louise was the first person to receive this decoration (posthumous),[1] the recommissioned Iron Cross was also awarded during the Franco-Prussian War (EK 1870), World War I (EK 1914), and World War II (EK 1939, re-introduced with a swastika added in the center). The Iron Cross was normally a military decoration only, though there were instances of it being awarded to civilians for performing military functions. Two examples of this were civilian test pilots Hanna Reitsch who was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class and Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, who was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class, for their actions as pilots during World War II..svg)
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"Iron Cross". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
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