Josef Grohé was a German Nazi Party official. He was the long-serving Gauleiter of Gau Cologne-Aachen and Reichskommissar for Belgium and Northern France toward the end of the Second World War.

The War Merit Cross was a state decoration of Nazi Germany during World War II. By the end of the conflict it was issued in four degrees and had an equivalent civil award. A "de-Nazified" version of the War Merit Cross was reissued in 1957 by the Bundeswehr for its veterans.