The ''Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches'' ( en, Eagle Shield of the German Reich) was an honorary award (german: Ehrengabe) granted by the German president for scholarly or artistic achievements. It was introduced during the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic (german: link=no, Weimarer Republik ), officially named the German Reich, was the government of Germany from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional federal republic for the first time in history; hence it is ...

, under President

Friedrich Ebert Friedrich Ebert (; 4 February 187128 February 1925) was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the first president of Germany from 1919 until his death in office in 1925. Ebert was elected leader of the SPD on t ...

and continued under

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. It was a metal disc with a German imperial eagle on a pedestal. It was a high and infrequently awarded honor, received by around 70 people in total.

Recipients during the Weimar Republic

Article 109, section 3 of the Weimar Constitution entitled "Orders and honours may not be given by the state" enacted a ban on honorific orders. Nevertheless, there was a desire for the state to be able to confer symbolic honours and the honorific award of the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was created to meet this desire. It consisted of a 108 mm wide medal of cast bronze, mounted on a bronze pedestal and inscribed on the reverse with an individualised honorific inscription. The designer of the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was

Josef Wackerle Joseph Wackerle (15 May 1880, Partenkirchen – 20 March 1959, Partenkirchen) was a German sculptor. His work was also part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics. Life Wackerle's grandfather was a wo ...

. The award was to be given to outstanding individuals in the realms of art, culture, scholarship, science and the economy. The award was made by hand written decree of the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

. The Ministry of the Interior made decisions about the honour at the direction of the Reichskunstwart

Edwin Redslob Edwin Redslob (22 September 1884, Weimar – 24 January 1973, West Berlin) was a German art historian who served as Reichskunstwart under the Weimar Republic. Appointed in 1920, he was the only person to fulfil this role as the position was abolis ...

, who was also responsible for the design. According to Redslob, the form of the eagle expressed the " idea of the Reich." In total, the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was awarded to twenty one people during the period of the Weimar Republic. They were: #

Gerhart Hauptmann Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He rece ...

(15 November 1922) #

Paul Wagner Paul Alan Wagner (born November 14, 1967) is an American former Major League Baseball (MLB) pitcher, who played for the Pittsburgh Pirates (1992–1997), Milwaukee Brewers (1997–1998), and Cleveland Indians (1999). Amateur career Wagner at ...

(7 March 1923) # Harry Plate (28 August 1925) # Emil Warburg (9 March 1926) # Adolf von Harnack (7 May 1926) #

Max Liebermann Max Liebermann (20 July 1847 – 8 February 1935) was a German painter and printmaker, and one of the leading proponents of Impressionism in Germany and continental Europe. In addition to his activity as an artist, he also assembled an important ...

(20 July 1927) #

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

(23 April 1928) #

Hans Delbrück Hans Gottlieb Leopold Delbrück (; 11 November 1848 – 14 July 1929) was a German historian. Delbrück was one of the first modern military historians, basing his method of research on the critical examination of ancient sources, using auxiliary ...

(11 November 1928) #

Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature ...

(22 December 1928) # Wilhelm Kahl (17 June 1929) #

Lujo Brentano Lujo Brentano (; ; 18 December 1844 – 9 September 1931) was an eminent German economist and social reformer. Biography Lujo Brentano, born in Aschaffenburg into a distinguished German Catholic intellectual family (originally of Italian desce ...

(18 December 1929) #

Oskar von Miller Oskar von Miller (7 May 1855 – 9 April 1934) was a German engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, a large museum of technology and science in Munich. Biography Born in Munich into an Upper Bavarian family from Aichach, he was the son of ...

(7 May 1930) # Friedrich Schmidt-Ott (4 June 1930) # Theodor Lewald (18 August 1930) # Georg Dehio (22 November 1930) #

Robert Bosch Robert Bosch (23 September 1861 – 12 March 1942) was a German industrialist, engineer and inventor, founder of Robert Bosch GmbH. Biography Bosch was born in Albeck, a village to the northeast of Ulm in southern Germany as the eleventh of ...

(23 September 1931) # Walter Simons (24 September 1931) #

Carl Duisberg Friedrich Carl Duisberg (29 September 1861 – 19 March 1935) was a German chemist and industrialist. Life Duisberg was born in Barmen, Germany. From 1879 to 1882, he studied at the Georg August University of Göttingen and Friedrich Schiller Un ...

(25 September 1931) # Max Sering (18 January 1932) # Ernst Brandes (11 March 1932) #

Adolph Goldschmidt Adolph Goldschmidt (15 January 1863 – 5 January 1944) was a Jewish German art historian. He taught at University of Berlin from 1892 to 1903, and University of Halle from 1904 to 1912. Biography He was born on 15 January 1863 in Hamburg, Ge ...

(1933)Hans Kauffmann: ''Adolph Goldschmidt''. In: NDB, Vol. 6, Berlin 1964, p. 614. Probably conferred on 15 January 1933. In the ''Lexikon deutsch-jüdischer Autoren'', Goldschmidt's Adlerschild is not mentioned.

Recipients during National Socialism

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-016-21, Wilhelm Kreis erhält den Adlerschild

The Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches continued to be awarded during the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

period. From 1934, the eagle designed by Josef Wackerle was replaced by the

Imperial Eagle The eagle is used in heraldry as a charge, as a supporter, and as a crest. Heraldic eagles can be found throughout world history like in the Achaemenid Empire or in the present Republic of Indonesia. The European post-classical symbolism of ...

with a swastika, symbols closely connected with Nazi ideology. The reverse continued to feature an individualised inscription, but was also inscribed ''Der

Führer ( ; , spelled or ''Fuhrer'' when the umlaut is not available) is a German word meaning "leader" or " guide". As a political title, it is strongly associated with the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Nazi Germany cultivated the ("leader princip ...

und

Reichskanzler The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...

'' (From 1940, simply ''Der Führer''). Otherwise it was unchanged. #

Philipp Lenard Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard (; hu, Lénárd Fülöp Eduárd Antal; 7 June 1862 – 20 May 1947) was a Hungarian-born German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays and the discovery of ...

(6 June 1933) #

Eduard Schwartz Eduard Schwartz (22 August 1858 – 13 February 1940) was a German classical philologist. Born in Kiel, he studied under Hermann Sauppe in Göttingen, under Hermann Usener and Franz Bücheler in Bonn, under Theodor Mommsen in Berlin and under Ul ...

(22 August 1933) # Friedrich von Müller (17 September 1933) # Werner Körte (21 October 1933) #

Wilhelm Dörpfeld Wilhelm Dörpfeld (26 December 1853 – 25 April 1940) was a German architect and archaeologist, a pioneer of stratigraphic excavation and precise graphical documentation of archaeological projects. He is famous for his work on Bronze Age site ...

(26 December 1933) # Hermann Stehr (16 February 1934) # Reinhold Seeberg (5 April 1934) # Hugo Hergesell (29 May 1934) # Richard Strauss (11 June 1934) # Adolf Schmidt (23 July 1934) #

Theodor Wiegand Theodor Wiegand (October 30, 1864 – December 19, 1936) was one of the more famous German archaeologists. Wiegand was born in Bendorf, Rhenish Prussia. He studied at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Freiburg Freiburg im Breisgau ...

(30 October 1934) # Julius Friedrich Lehmann (28 November 1934) #

Heinrich Finke Heinrich may refer to: People * Heinrich (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) * Heinrich (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) *Hetty (given name), a given name (including a list of peo ...

(13 June 1935) #

Ludwig Aschoff Karl Albert Ludwig Aschoff (10 January 1866 – 24 June 1942) was a German physician and pathologist. He is considered to be one of the most influential pathologists of the early 20th century and is regarded as the most important German patholog ...

(10 January 1936) #

Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann Gustav Heinrich Johann Apollon Tammann ( – 17 December 1938) was a prominent Baltic German chemist-physicist who made important contributions in the fields of glassy and solid solutions, heterogeneous equilibria, crystallization, and metallurg ...

(20 April 1936) # Ludolf von Krehl (25 June 1936) #

Erich Marcks Erich Marcks (6 June 1891 – 12 June 1944) was a German general in the Wehrmacht during World War II. He authored the first draft of the operational plan, ''Operation Draft East'', for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, ad ...

(17 November 1936) # August Bier (24 November 1936) # Wladimir Peter Köppen (28 March 1937) # Emil Kirdorf (8 April 1937) #

Adolf Bartels __NOTOC__ Adolf Bartels (15 November 1862 – 7 March 1945) was a pastor, German journalist and poet. Known for his '' völkisch'' worldview, he has been seen as a harbinger of Nazi anti-Semitism.Roderick Stackelberg, "Bartels, Adolf", in ''Antis ...

(1 May 1937) #

Bernhard Nocht Bernhard is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name * Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar (1604–1639), Duke of Saxe-Weimar * Bernhard, Prince of Saxe-Meiningen (1901–1984), head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen 19 ...

(4 November 1937) #

Alexander Koenig Alexander Ferdinand Koenig (20 February 1858 – 16 July 1940) was a German naturalist and zoologist. Koenig was born at St Petersburg, Russia where his father was a successful merchant. He grew up in Bonn. Koenig became interested in nat ...

(20 February 1938) # Adalbert Czerny (25 March 1938) #

Henry Ford Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that ...

(1938) # Erwin Guido Kolbenheyer (1938) # Robert von Ostertag (20 April 1939) # Friedrich Karl Kleine (14 May 1939) # Albert Pietzsch (28 June 1939) # Heinrich Sohnrey (19 June 1939) #

Julius Dorpmüller Julius Heinrich Dorpmueller (24 July 1869 – 5 July 1945) was general manager of Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft from 1926 to 1945, a Nazi politician and the Reich Minister for Transport from 1937 to 1945. Life Dorpmueller was the son of ...

(24 July 1939) #

Arthur Kampf Arthur Kampf (28 September 1864 in Aachen – 8 February 1950 in Castrop-Rauxel) was a List of German painters, German painter. He was associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. Life Kampf studied under Peter Janssen, among others, ...

(28 September 1939) #

Karl Muck Karl Muck (October 22, 1859 – March 3, 1940) was a German-born conductor of Classical music. He based his activities principally in Europe and mostly in opera. His American career comprised two stints at the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). M ...

(22 October 1939) #

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Gustav Georg Friedrich Maria Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (born Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach; 7 August 1870 – 16 January 1950) was a German foreign service official who became chairman of the board of Friedrich Krupp AG, a heavy industry con ...

(7 August 1940) # Paul Kehr (28 December 1940) # Heinrich Schnee (4 February 1941) # Albert Brackmann (24 June 1941) # Ernst Poensgen (17 October 1941) # Wilhelm Kreis (17 March 1943) #

Gustav Bauer Gustav Adolf Bauer (; 6 January 1870 – 16 September 1944) was a German Social Democratic Party leader and the chancellor of Germany from June 1919 to March 1920. He served as head of government for nine months. Prior to becoming head of gover ...

(1 October 1944) # Hermann Röchling (12 November 1942) #

Alfred Hugenberg Alfred Ernst Christian Alexander Hugenberg (19 June 1865 – 12 March 1951) was an influential German businessman and politician. An important figure in nationalist politics in Germany for the first few decades of the twentieth century, Hugenbe ...

(3 March 1943) # Ernst Rüdin (19 April 1944) #

Eugen Fischer Eugen Fischer (5 July 1874 – 9 July 1967) was a German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, ...

(June 1944) #

Paul Schultze-Naumburg Paul Schultze-Naumburg (10 June 1869 – 19 May 1949) was a German traditionalist architect, painter, publicist and author. A leading critic of modern architecture, he joined the NSDAP in 1930 (aged 61) and became an important advocate of N ...

(10 June 1944)

References

Bibliography

*Christian Zentner, Friedemann Bedürftig (1991). ''

The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich ''The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'' is a two-volume text edited by and , first published in German in 1985. ''The Encyclopedia of the Third Reich'' is leading source material for information about Nazi Germany and the reign of Adolf Hitler a ...

''. Macmillan, New York. *Wolfgang Steguweit: ''Der »Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches«.'' In: ''Berlinische Monatsschrift.'' Heft 6. Edition Luisenstadt, 2000, , pp. 182–187
online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches Orders, decorations, and medals of Germany Orders, decorations, and medals of Nazi Germany