Classes
The Order comprises four groups with in total eight classes:
- Grand Cross (Großkreuz)
- Grand Cross Special Class (Sonderstufe des Großkreuzes)
- Grand Cross 1st Class (Großkreuz), sometimes with laurel wreath (special design; Großkreuz besonderer Ausführung)
- Grand Merit Cross (Großes Verdienstkreuz)
- Grand Cross 2nd Class, or Grand Merit Cross with Star and Sash (Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern und Schulterband)
- Grand Officer's Cross, or Grand Merit Cross with Star (Großes Verdienstkreuz mit Stern)
- Commander's Cross, or Grand Merit Cross (Großes Verdienstkreuz)
- Merit Cross (Verdienstkreuz)
- Officer's Cross, or Merit Cross 1st Class (Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse)
- Knight's Cross, or Merit Cross on Ribbon (Verdienstkreuz am Bande)
- Merit Medal (Verdienstmedaille)
The President of the Federal Republic holds the Grand Cross Special Class ex officio. It is awarded to him in a ceremony by the President of the Bundestag, attended by the Chancellor of Germany, the President of the Bundesrat, and the Supreme Court President. Other than the German president, only a foreign head of state can be awarded with this highest class. There is also the provision of awarding the Grand Cross 1st Class in a special rare design, in which the central medallion with the black eagle is surrounded by a stylized laurel wreath in relief. This Grand Cross special design has been awarded so far only twice, to former German chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl.
Read more about this topic: Order Of Merit Of The Federal Republic Of Germany
Famous quotes containing the word classes:
“I am ... by tradition and long study a complete snob. P. Marlowe and I do not despise the upper classes because they take baths and have money; we despise them because they are phony.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“There were three classes of inhabitants who either frequent or inhabit the country which we had now entered: first, the loggers, who, for a part of the year, the winter and spring, are far the most numerous, but in the summer, except for a few explorers for timber, completely desert it; second, the few settlers I have named, the only permanent inhabitants, who live on the verge of it, and help raise supplies for the former; third, the hunters, mostly Indians, who range over it in their season.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Is a man too strong and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,—a morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;Mnature sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the dame’s classes at the village school, and love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and the feldspar, takes the boar out and puts the lamb in, and keeps her balance true.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)