"Automatic" Iron Cross
On 1 June 1940, Hitler decreed that any recipient of the Wound Badge in Silver or Gold be automatically awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class if that individual did not already have that decoration. This pluralism meant that, for example, a sailor who lost a hand or foot in action while serving on an E-boat at the Kuban bridgehead would receive not only the Wound Badge in Silver, but also the Fast Attack Craft War Badge, the Kuban Shield, and the Iron Cross 2nd Class, purely on account of the wound sustained.
Read more about this topic: Wound Badge
Famous quotes containing the words automatic, iron and/or cross:
“She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Summer involves going down as a steep flight of steps
To a narrow ledge over the water. Is this it, then,
This iron comfort, these reasonable taboos,
Or did you mean it when you stopped? And the face
Resembles yours, the one reflected in the water.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)