Content - Richard Lundström
Layout - Sebastian Bianchi 

Rules & Regulations

Prussian Regulations of 4 July 1913
(covering the pre-World War period)

1) Prussian Iron Cross 2nd Class (here for 1870)
2) Prussian Hohenzollern House Order 3rd Class with Swords
3) Prussian Red Eagle Orders 3rd or 4th Classes with Swords 
4) Prussian Crown Order 3rd or 4th Classes with Swords
5) Prussian Gold Military Merit Cross (aka “the Enlisted Pour le Merite”)
6) Prussian Military Decoration 1st Class (silver cross of same design as #5)
7) Prussian Military Decoration 2nd Class (medal worn, like #s 1-6, on “Iron Cross” ribbon)
8) Russian Order of Saint George 4th Class (vestige of Napoleonic Wars alliances)
9) Austro-Hungarian Maria Theresa Order-Knight (same circumstances as #8)
10) Prussian Lifesaving Medal “on the Ribbon” 
10a) Prussian Hohenzollern House Order/Eagle on peacetime statute ribbon
11) Prussian Red Eagle Orders 3rd and 4th Classes, then Crown Orders 3rd and 4th (peacetime)
12) Prussian Red Cross Medal 2nd Class (instituted 1898)
13) Prussian Cross of the General Decoration (awarded 1900-1918, replacing #13a)
13a) Prussian General Decoration Medal in Gold (only awarded 1890-1900)
14) Prussian General Decoration Medal
15) Prussian XXV Years Long Service Cross (at this time awarded only to officers)
15a) Prussian Red Eagle Order Medal, Crown Order Medal, or Kriegerverdienst Medal (natives)
16) Principality of Hohenzollern Honor Cross (House Order) 2nd and 3rd Classes (war or peace) 
17) Prussian Red Cross Medal 3rd Class
18) 1864 Düppel Cross
19) 1864 Alsen Cross
20) 1870-71 War Medals (only one type could be worn)
21) 1866 War Crosses (only one type could be worn)
22) 1864 War Medal
22a) Colonial Medal (created 1913 with bars retroactive to the 1880s)
23) 1904-06 Southwest Africa Medal (combatant or steel)
24) 1900-01 China Medal (combatant or steel)
25) 1848-49 Principality of Hohenzollern Campaign Medal (for the 1848/49 uprisings there)
26) 1898 Jerusalem Cross (for the Kaiser’s visit: “always to be worn”)
27) 1861 Wilhelm I Coronation Medal
28) 1897 Wilhelm I Centenary Medal
28a) Electoral Hesse Jubilee Medals (given to surviving pre-1866 veterans)
29) Hannoverian Jubilee Medals (ditto)
30) Orders from states other than Prussia “except for #s 8 & 9”
31) European medals

Note that there were various and complicated rules concerning how and if multiple awards could be worn for #s 3 and 4 (Orders 4th were replaced by Orders 3rd except under certain circum-stances). Additional awards of a Lifesaving award (#10) were possible, with recipients below offi-cer status receiving first a General Decoration Medal and then a Cross of the General Decoration for 2nd and 3rd acts—all on the Lifesaving Medal ribbon, but AFTER the Lifesaving Medal on a bar, while officer class recipients received a Crown or Red Eagle Order relevant to their rank on the Lifesaving Medal ribbon, after the Lifesaving Medal on a bar. This list is by no means as de-finitive as it appears—aside from the obvious anomalies of tsarist and Habsburg Orders and early campaign and commemorative awards, the Prussian Merit Crosses established in 1912 in four grades appear nowhere on this listing. Note also that the Jerusalem Cross ( a delicate enameled piece identically awarded to all persons accompanying the Kaiser, from ordinary sailors to Princes) , was supposed to be worn “at all times,” silly, impractical, and requiring with and without medal bar mountings. Note also that there is no mention of the XX Years Reserve-Landwehr Cross. The other Prussian/navy military long service awards are not mentioned, because at this period they were worn as pinback brooches, not ribboned medals.