1939 German Iron Cross 1st. Class with flat pin

1939 German Iron Cross 1st. Class with flat pin.

The standard 1939 Iron Cross was issued in the following two grades:

Iron Cross, 2nd class, (Eisernes Kreuz 2. Klasse – abbreviated as EK II or E.K.II.)
Iron Cross, 1st class, (Eisernes Kreuz 1. Klasse – abbreviated as EK I or E.K.I.)
The Iron Cross was awarded for bravery in battle as well as other military contributions in a battlefield environment.

The Iron Cross, 2nd class, came with a ribbon and the cross itself was worn in one of two different ways:

From the second button in the tunic from the first day after award.
When in formal dress, the entire cross was worn mounted alone or as part of a medal bar.
Note that for everyday wear, only the ribbon was worn from the second buttonhole in the tunic.

The Iron Cross, 1st class, was a pin-on medal with no ribbon and was worn centered on a uniform breast pocket, either on dress uniforms or everyday outfit. It was a progressive award, with the second class having to be earned before the first class and so on for the higher degrees.

It is estimated that some four and a half million 2nd Class Iron Crosses were awarded during World War II, and 300,000 of the 1st Class.

Thirty-nine women, chiefly female nurses from the German Red Cross were granted the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Example of such women are Elfriede Wnuk, wounded in 1942 on the Eastern Front, Magda Darchniger, decorated in 1942, Marga Droste, who remained at her post in the Wilhelmshaven hospital despite her own wounds during a bombing in 1942, Ilse Schulz and Grete Fock, who served in the African campaign, Liselotte Hensel and Miss Holzmann, who were both decorated in 1943 for bravery during a bombing of Hamburg, and the countess Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, acting as a qualified test pilot and development engineer and decorated in August 1943. Other DRK female auxiliaries who received the Iron Cross for acts of bravery are Hanny Weber, Geolinde Münchge, Elfriede Gunia, Ruth Raabe, Ilse Daub, Greta Graffenkamp, Elfriede Muth, Ursula Kogel, Liselotte Schlotterbeck, Rohna von Ceuern, Anna Wohlschütz, and Dr. Elizabeth Potuz. Two non-German female auxiliaries of the German Red Cross were awarded the Iron Cross: Norwegian nurse Anne Gunhild Moxnes in April 1944, and an unknown Belgian nurse in 1942. A young member of the female youth organisation of the Third Reich, Ottilie Stephan, was also awarded the Iron Cross in February 1945 under unknown circumstances. At least two Iron Cross, 1st class, recipients were women, test pilot (Flugkapitän) Hanna Reitsch and in January 1945 German Red Cross sister Else Grossmann.

One of the Muslim SS members to receive the award, SS Obersturmführer Imam Halim Malkoć was granted the Iron Cross (2nd Class) in October 1943 for his role in suppressing the Villefranche-de-Rouergue mutiny. He, together with several other Bosnian Muslims, was decorated with the EK II personally by Himmler in the days after the mutiny. Because of his Muslim faith, he wore only the ribbon, and not the cross. Three Finnish Jews were awarded the Iron Cross: Major Leo Skurnik and Captain Salomon Klass of the Finnish Army and nurse Dina Poljakoff from the Lotta Svärd organization. All three refused the award. The Spanish double-agent Juan Pujol García, known to the Germans as Arabel and the British as Garbo received the 2nd Class Iron Cross, and an MBE from King George VI four months later.