DESIGN AND MANUFACTURE: THE IRON CROSS
In the first of an occasional series on the manufacture of arms, weapons, equipment, uniforms, and decorations, James Dempster looks at the process for the manufacture of the Iron Cross 2nd Class of 1939.
In the first of a new series on the design and manufacture of German military equipment and weapons, James Dempster describes the complexities behind the design and manufacture of the Iron Cross of 1939.
The Iron Cross was reinstituted on 1 September 1939, with the first crosses awarded in early September for fighting in Poland. However, the order for the reinstitution had already been written months beforehand and was held in a safe in the Supreme Command of the Wehrmacht awaiting the date of the invasion.
The time between the order being written and 1 September 1939 was used by Germany to develop the design for the new crosses and manufacture enough to be ready for ‘Fall Weiß’, the invasion of Poland. One can only imagine what the manufacturers were told as they prepared designs, made prototypes, and then manufactured thousands of new crosses for a nation not yet at war.
To get awards to soldiers so quickly, however, manufacturers had to rapidly make iron cores marked with the new year of institution and a swastika. To save precious time, they used leftover frames from the First World War along with variant designs they had been working on. This created a ‘hodgepodge’ of Iron Crosses linked directly to the fighting in Poland.
Nearly 50,000 Iron Crosses were sent out to divisions by the Präsidialkanzlei (PKZ), the organisation regulating award production, in September 1939 – an insanely rapid turnaround for companies relying on craftsmen to design, assemble, and ship the crosses to the field.
Not only that, but a total of 3,340 First Class and 82,095 Second Class were shipped to divisions by the end of that year; however, these early crosses were made before the PKZ standardised their manufacture. Here, we look at how the final Iron Cross design was settled on and the process of its manufacture.
ROAD TO STANDARDISATION
There was a massive industry in Germany to provide the millions of decorations issued throughout the war, with great profits to be made filling government contracts. Awards were needed for presentation to recipients and for retail shops providing avenues for soldiers, sailors, and airmen to purchase replacement and duplicate awards as needed. This created a huge demand.
Companies were licensed by the PKZ to manufacture the multitude of
orders and medals Germany awarded throughout the Second World War and the manufacturers supporting this industry differed greatly: from small shops producing specialised items like mounting pins to large factories such as Juncker in Berlin putting out hundreds of thousands of medals annually.
The PKZ soon found itself incapable of properly regulating the vast enterprise of nearly 150 military medal manufacturers, to say nothing of those making ribbons, award boxes, cases, pins, and other accoutrements.
This all came to a head in June 1940 when the PKZ published a disapproving article titled ‘Notifications from the Presidential Chancellery (Orders Chancellery)’. It noted a lack of production quality, standardisation, and poor display procedures for retail shops.
In response, the LDO was created in July 1940; the Leistungsgemeinschaft der Deutschen Ordenshersteller (Performance Union of German Orders Manufacturers) helped supervise manufacturing and distribution, particularly the private purchase market. The PKZ and LDO would now regulate the entire system, even revoking licenses of manufacturers who failed to meet high standards. Their first order of business was straightening out the mess that the medal’s manufacture had become.
MULTIPLE DESIGNS
Unfortunately, records have yet to surface detailing if or when prewar production began, but primary sources provide great insight into the crushing demand placed on the cottage industry of medal manufacturers to rapidly supply awards for the war. Faced with an urgent need, the PKZ turned to a handful of companies that could provide immediate output by combining new cores with old frames. Dr Dohle, head of the Office of Orders and Medals in the PKZ, explained the situation in an article of June 1940:
‘Also, for the manufacturing of the Iron Cross, which the Führer reinstituted on the date of the outbreak of war, greatest acceleration was required because of the stormy tempo of our troops so that the troops could be bestowed with the well-deserved recognition. In this case, it was at first reverted to those companies which still possessed stamping and punching dies of the Great War. After significant deviations in form were realised, the Präsidialkanzlei of the Führer decreed that all participating companies had to obtain dies from one company which had created an especially good form of the Iron Cross. Additionally, the execution of the cross was as soon as possible improved; mainly a harder, more resistant finishing of the core with a deep black paint and an improved polishing of the rim was achieved.’
Manufacturers took great liberties when producing the Iron Cross of 1939 during the early days of the war and when there was no standardisation. The law reinstituting the Order of the Iron Cross in 1939 had an attachment displaying the final shape of the new crosses as approved by Hitler; however, with manufacturers filling the mass of orders in a haphazard way there were multiple designs.
Three initial patterns were presented by the manufacturing community and described by Dr Doehle in an article in the June 1940 issue of Schwert & Spaten, a trade publication for manufacturers of orders and medals. In the article ‘Strict Supervision of Manufacturers and Retail Market’ he presents the three designs proposed by
companies in 1939.
The first cross was designed by Deschler & Sohn of Munich in the shape of the modern Tatzenkreuz used by the present-day Bundeswehr. The second cross was designed by Juncker and had what is known as a Schinkelform as it closely resembled the shape of the original crosses designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel for the very first Iron Cross of 1813.
These Schinkelform crosses used old silver frames left over from the First World War with new iron cores bearing the 1939 date, or else used old dies from the First War to stamp new frames. It was a simple yet ingenious design plan to save manufacturers’ time and money. By using new old stock, they could get ahead of the competition and fill orders quickly. Yet it was the third and entirely new design by Steinhauer & Lück that would be chosen for the final form of the 1939 Iron Cross.
STANDARDISATION
Emil Escher, master engraver for Steinhauer & Lück (S&L), won the competition to design the Iron Cross after the three models were accepted in the final competition. S&L operated in Lüdenscheid, the capital of German award manufacturing where many military award manufacturers had set up shop. Here, silver and goldsmiths, master engravers, smelters and artisans toiled to create the many and varied awards presented during the war.
While Lüdenscheid was only one of dozens of cities housing award manufacturers, it had an extremely high concentration of them. Herr Paul Preuss, vice-president of S&L, noted in an interview that he sent the winning pattern for the Iron Cross dies to all companies engaged in their manufacture and was even allowed to sell master dies to competitors to ensure uniformity.
We can better understand the crushing need for these decorations by examining the number of licenses the PKZ issued for production. Archives note that five companies had received orders by 9 September 1939, this list being expanded on 18 September to an additional six companies.
By 6 December, another 11 companies were added, expanding to 46 companies by 11 May 1940. By the end of the war, over 60 companies
manufactured Iron Crosses. This begs the question: when did manufacturing start and did divisions have stock on-hand when they invaded Poland? Although the first five companies had orders by 9 September, this would have been far too late to supply those units already awarding Iron Crosses during the first week of conflict.
German manufacturers rose to the challenge and rapidly provided thousands of Iron Crosses for the campaign in Poland, but this rapid expansion happened without enough oversight and required further standardisation. For approximately the first eight months of the war, two different First Class and three Second Class iron cross designs were issued to soldiers.
The Iron Cross First Class saw two basic designs, with some manufacturers using the newly approved S&L design and others using Juncker’s shortcut of Imperial era frames and dies. The Iron Class Second Class saw all three designs awarded, including the Tatzenkreuz. The PKZ tried to put a quick end to this practice, dictating every manufacturer would have to purchase their dies from Steinhaur & Lück. But, by the end of September, a total of 3,140
Iron Class 1st Class and 49,895 Iron Cross 2nd Class had been shipped to the Wehrmacht for awarding. Thus, these early unmarked crosses using three designs can all be traced directly to actions in Poland.
Standardising iron cores also became an issue for the PKZ. Regulations stipulated an iron core, and so, naturally, collectors often assume that all crosses encountered should be magnetic. However, in the early days of Iron Cross manufacturing, some makers substituted brass or zinc as the material for the core. Numerous nonmagnetic crosses can be found today dating back to this early production issue. However, the PKZ was still informing makers they could not use brass or other cores as late as July 1942. They went so far as to publish a reminder of the historical significance of iron, stating it was ‘ethically impossible to use material other than iron’ in production of the crosses, warning that non-compliance would lead to the exclusion of companies from medal production, thus cutting off a key revenue source.
These primary source documents have gone a long way in helping dispel the myth that crosses with brass or other non-ferrous cores were made specifically for Kriegsmarine units because iron would rust at sea. This ‘old-wives tale’ in the collecting community is but one myth used to explain inconsistencies by the exacting Germans. The reality is far more mundane.
IRON CROSS MARKINGS
In March 1941, a numbering system was instituted to further regulate the sales of Iron Crosses and broadened in 1943 to awarded crosses. Unmarked
crosses were awarded through to 1942 and were available as private purchase items until the LDO’S rule instituting a numbering system for private purchase crosses on 1 March 1941. Ldo-numbered crosses were solely for the private purchase market and were categorically not awarded crosses; rather, they were purchased as replacements and extras.
Pkz-marked crosses were those sent from the PKZ directly to units in the field for awarding. There are three types of marked crosses to be found: unmarked, Ldo-marked with an L/manufacturer’s identification number, and Pkz-marked with just a manufacturer’s identification number.
It is important to stress there is no material difference between marked and unmarked crosses other than the addition of a stamp denoting the maker of the cross. These stamps allow us to loosely date the crosses because markings allow for broad estimates of production timelines. Unmarked crosses are the earliest, ranging from 1939-1942; Ldo-numbered crosses range from mid-1941-1945; Pkznumbered crosses range from 1943 to 1945.
The paints used on the iron cores is also of interest. Researcher and author Dietrich Maerz conducted extensive tests of the paint on numerous iron crosses using microscopic sampling and found two types of paint were used. Bone black was made by burning animal bones and therefore has a high potassium and calcium content. Carbon black was made by crushing the mineral Shungite, a black stone ironically named after a Russian village, the paint having a high Silicon content.
Iron Crosses were all hand-made. As we will see, they each went through the hands of multiple artisans as they were constructed, painted, polished, and packaged. All of this was terribly labour intensive and caused problems for the manufacturers as the Wehrmacht started to pull men from these firms to the front lines. Period documents show manufacturers asking for waivers from the draft for their staff as they started to lose skilled craftsmen when the war ground inexorably on.
The supply and demand problem only grew as the war extended, and orders increased every month. For example, over 100,000 2nd Class Iron Crosses were awarded in June 1940 for the invasion of France. A year later, in Russia, over 150,000 were awarded in the same month. The manufacturers had to keep up with demand, as well as filling orders for war badges and other medals and honours they produced.
Millions of awards were produced during the Third Reich, even into the final months of the war. The latest period document the author has seen was an order for 30,000 wound badges in silver and 10,000 in gold, placed on 22 February 1945, from the PKZ to the firm Karl Wild, showing that as Germany crumbled there was still a high demand for military medals.
AWARD NUMBERS
The PKZ kept meticulous monthly records of Iron Crosses awarded, shipped to units, and stock on hand.
Unfortunately, comprehensive numbers for all branches are only available through to March 1942. The next data source comes from the papers of Dr Albert Horst, responsible for statistical data for the army personnel office, including Iron Cross statistics. He retained complete numbers for the German Army and Waffen-ss throughout the war, by campaign, and even nationality.
Interestingly, documents dictating the ratio of Iron Class First Class to Second Class awarded were sent by this office to each commanding general and divisional commander and signed by the chief of the personnel department, General Rudolf Schmundt. In it, a guideline is given of a 1:8 ratio of 1st Class to 2nd Class crosses to be awarded.
Thus, for every man to receive the first class, another 8 may be given the second class. This was done in attempts to ensure the ‘conservation
of the value of the Iron Cross’ due to concerns, that: ‘… it is obvious that the relative value of the Iron Cross 1st Class has already declined considerably.’ Clearly, they were concerned with award inflation. To remedy this, the document states:
‘It seems correct to hold the ratio at the divisions from now on at 1:8, not by strictly inflexible awarding at this ratio, but rather within ‘planned economy’ at the awarding offices.’
Numbers of awarded crosses are available for the Heer and Waffen-ss. The numbers for the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine have not been located.
According to Dr Horst’s documents, there were 2,277,729 Iron Cross Second Class awarded by 12 March 1945, with an estimate of 2,350,000 in total for the war to the army and SS. For the Iron Cross First Class, he recorded exactly 265,000 awarded to the army and SS. If the 1:8 ratio followed through, we may estimate the total crosses awarded were 3.5-3.7 million Iron Cross 2nd Class and 500,000 First Class to all services. How many were produced, however, is another question.
REMINDERS OF WAR’S COST
The Order of the Iron Cross was a particular honor in wartime Germany, and they were presented in formal award ceremonies. First Class
crosses were awarded in small black presentation cases like those from the First World War. Most Second Class Iron Crosses were placed in paper packets for awarding, with the packets bound in cartons.
Some Ldo-marked crosses were placed in luxury private retail boxes for sale at stores throughout Germany, but, as already stated, LDO crosses were never awarded and only available as replacements or additional pieces for other uniforms etc.
Along with the crosses, ribbons were manufactured by various companies and packaged in cartons of 1,000. Ribbon manufacturing was also highly regulated, suppliers having to send numerous samples to the PKZ for approval before being accepted as a licensed manufacturer. Some even supplied ribbons in separate paper packets. The demand was massive, with period documents showing orders regularly in the hundreds of thousands of pieces.
Men bravely gave their all on multiple fronts during the Second World War, and Germany had reached back to the Iron Cross of Prussia to recognise heroic deeds. First instituted in 1813, it was presented to all for bravery.
With millions awarded, and millions more manufactured, many of these crosses remain as reminders of the cost of a war that was pursued by a grotesque and criminally depraved regime.