Recipients
The Association of Knight's Cross Recipients (AKCR) names 7,322 recipients of the Knight's Cross in the three military branches of the Wehrmacht, consisting of the Heer (Army), Kriegsmarine (Navy) and Luftwaffe (Air force), the Waffen-SS, the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) and the Volkssturm. The AKCR also lists 43 individuals in the military of allies of the Third Reich for a total of 7,365 recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Of these 890 individuals received Oak Leaves (882 members of the Wehrmacht and 8 non-Germans); 160 received Oak Leaves and Swords (159 members of the Wehrmacht and one honorary recipient, the Japanese admiral Isoroku Yamamoto). Only 27 men were awarded the Diamonds grade of the Knight's Cross (3 field marshals, 10 generals, 3 colonels, 9 ace pilots and 2 U-boat captains); Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.
Among those generally accepted 159 German recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords are 13 recipients, whose Swords to the Knight's Cross do not meet the formal awarding criteria of the Knight's Cross. Twenty-four recipients of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves are also lacking sustainable evidence that their listing is justifiable. Otto Weidinger, Günther-Eberhardt Wisliceny, Sylvester Stadler and Wilhelm Bittrich received the Swords from SS Obergruppenführer Josef Dietrich, who was not legally authorized to present the award.
Further, Hermann Fegelein was executed in the last days of the war for desertion, a charge which upon conviction would have legally deprived him of all rank and awards, including his Knight's Cross. However, his might have been an extralegal execution. According to the recollections of Wilhelm Mohnke, he and the three other general officers tasked with holding a court martial for Fegelein found him to be of such unsound mind that he was not competent to stand trial under military law. Fegelein subsequently disappeared in the hands of Gruppenführer Johann Rattenhuber, who had been one of the empaneled court-martial judges and the Führerbunker's Reichssicherheitsdienst security squad. Fegelein was executed by firing squad.
Author Veit Scherzer concluded that every presentation of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, or one of its higher grades, made until 20 April 1945 is verifiable in the German National Archives. The first echelon of the Heerespersonalamt Abteilung P 5/Registratur (Army Personnel Office Department P 5/Registry) was relocated from Zossen in Brandenburg to Traunstein in Bavaria on this day and the confusion regarding who can be considered a legitimate Knight's Cross recipient began.
Among the officers who participated in the plot to assassinate Hitler on 20 July 1944 were thirteen recipients of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. In addition, 711 recipients of the Knight's Cross later served in the Bundeswehr, with 114 of them reaching the rank of general.
Read more about this topic: Knight's Cross Of The Iron Cross
Famous quotes containing the word recipients:
“The proclamation and repetition of first principles is a constant feature of life in our democracy. Active adherence to these principles, however, has always been considered un-American. We recipients of the boon of liberty have always been ready, when faced with discomfort, to discard any and all first principles of liberty, and, further, to indict those who do not freely join with us in happily arrogating those principles.”
—David Mamet (b. 1947)