List of bearers of the Grand Cross of the Federal Cross of Merit
Lists of the bearers of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
In this list, bearers of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany at the Grand Cross level are given with brief personal information.
Special level of the Grand Cross
1953/1954
- Getúlio Vargas , Brazil on May 20, 1953
- Manuel A. Odria , Peru on July 20, 1953
- Juan Perón , Argentina on August 25, 1953
- Gustavo Rojas Pinilla , Colombia on October 30, 1953
- Carlos Ibáñez del Campo , Chile on November 21, 1953
- Luigi Einaudi , Italy January 2, 1954
- Paul I of Greece , Greece on March 8, 1954
- Marcos Pérez Jiménez , Venezuela on April 15, 1954
- Adolfo Ruiz Cortines , Mexico on June 11, 1954
- Celâl Bayar , Turkey on June 12, 1954
- Haile Selassie , Ethiopia on November 6, 1954
- José María Velasco Ibarra , Ecuador on November 11, 1954
- Andrés Martínez Trueba , Uruguay on November 13, 1954
- Oscar Osorio , El Salvador on December 29, 1954
- Víctor Paz Estenssoro , Bolivia on December 30, 1954
1955-1959
- Ásgeir Ásgeirsson , Iceland on January 3, 1955
- Seán Ó Ceallaigh , Ireland on February 25, 1955
- Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , Iran on February 27, 1955
- Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari , Iran on February 27, 1955
- Hector B. Trujillo Molina , Dominican Republic on March 22, 1955
- Paul Eugène Magloire , Haiti on December 10, 1955
- Juscelino Kubitschek , Brazil on April 10, 1956
- Friederike of Greece on May 8, 1956
- Giovanni Gronchi , Italy July 18, 1956
- William S. Tubman , Liberia October 5, 1956
- Antoinette Tubman , Liberia October 5, 1956
- Theodor Körner , Austria on October 17, 1956
- Carla Gronchi , Italy December 3, 1956
- Fulgencio Batista , Cuba on May 28, 1957
- Adolf Schärf , Austria on June 11, 1957
- Manuel Prado y Ugarteche , Peru on July 29, 1957
- Camilo Ponce Enríquez , Ecuador 1958
- Elizabeth II , United Kingdom on September 29, 1958
- Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , United Kingdom on September 29, 1958
- Luis Somoza Debayle , Nicaragua 1959
- Ahmed Sékou Touré , Guinea 1959
- Andrée Touré , Guinea 1959
1960-1979
- Bhumibol Adulyadej , Thailand 1960
- Sirikit , Thailand 1960
- Arturo Frondizi , Argentina 1960
- Elena Faggionato de Frondizi , Argentina 1960
- José María Lemus López , El Salvador 1960
- Clorinda Málaga de Prado , Peru 1960
- Charles de Gaulle , France 1961
- Mohammed Sahir Shah , Afghanistan on August 7, 1963
- Diosdado Macapagal , Philippines in November 1963
- Evangelina Macapagal , Philippines in November 1963
- Mahendra , Nepal 1964
- Ratna of Nepal , 1964
- Farah Pahlavi , 1967
- Ismail Nasiruddin Shah , Malaysia on March 9, 1967
- Juliana of the Netherlands , Netherlands on November 24, 1969
- Bernhard of the Netherlands on November 24, 1969
- Nicolae Ceaușescu , Romania on May 17, 1971
- Josip Broz Tito , Yugoslavia on June 24th 1974
- Valery Giscard d'Estaing , France on April 21, 1975
- Juan Carlos I and Sophia of Greece , Spain on April 19, 1977
- Taufaʻahau Tupou IV. , Tonga on December 2nd, 1977
- Halaevalu Mataʻaho ʻAhomeʻe , Tonga on December 2, 1977
- Silvia of Sweden , Sweden on March 20, 1979
1980-1999
- António Ramalho Eanes , Portugal 1980
- Beatrix of the Netherlands on March 1, 1983
- Claus of the Netherlands on March 1, 1983
- Birendra , Nepal in October 1986
- Vigdís Finnbogadóttir , Iceland 1988
- Mário Soares , Portugal 1991
- Azlan Shah , Malaysia on September 7, 1992
- Andrew Bertie , Rome 1992
- George HW Bush , United States of America on December 20, 1993
- Harald V. , Norway on April 18, 1994
- Fernando Henrique Cardoso , Brazil 1995
- Tuanku Jaafar , Malaysia 1996
- Hassanal Bolkiah , Brunei on March 30, 1998
- Hamad bin Chalifa Al Thani , Qatar on May 27, 1999
- Mikhail Gorbachev , Russia on November 7, 1999
- Eduard Shevardnadze , Georgia 1999
- Jorge Sampaio , Portugal 1999
Since 2000
- Suleyman Demirel , Turkey on April 6, 2000
- Václav Havel , Czech Republic 2000
- Árpád Göncz , Hungary 2000
- Guido de Marco , Malta 2001
- Tarja Halonen , Finland on September 10, 2001
- Aleksander Kwaśniewski , Poland 2002
- Abdullah II bin al-Hussein , Jordan on October 21, 2002
- Rania of Jordan on October 21, 2002
- Marc Ravalomanana , Madagascar on April 7, 2006
- John Agyekum Kufuor , Ghana 2008
- Aníbal Cavaco Silva , Portugal on May 26, 2009
- Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah , Kuwait on April 27, 2010
- François Hollande , France on September 3, 2013
- Toomas Hendrik Ilves , Estonia 2013
- Miloš Zeman , Czech Republic 2014
- Borut Pahor , Slovenia on November 25, 2014
- Marie Louise Coleiro Preca , Malta on April 29, 2015
- Philippe of Belgium
- Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz , Belgium on March 8, 2016
- Rossen Plevneliev , Bulgaria 2016
- Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, 2017
- Máxima of the Netherlands , 2017
- Andrej Kiska , Slovakia on November 17, 2017
- Sauli Niinistö , Finland on September 17, 2018
- Raimonds Vējonis , Latvia on February 22, 2019
- Guðni Th. Jóhannesson , Iceland on June 12, 2019
- Sergio Mattarella , Italy on September 19, 2019
- Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto , Rome on October 21, 2019
- Daniel Oduber Quirós , Costa Rica
- Qaboos ibn Said , Oman
- Lech Wałęsa , Poland
Federal President
All Federal Presidents of the Federal Republic of Germany who receive the Grand Cross without an award certificate as an insignia upon taking office are also bearers .
- Theodor Heuss (only 1952 with the Foundation of the Order of Merit)
- Heinrich Lübke (1959)
- Gustav Heinemann (1969)
- Walter Scheel (1974)
- Karl Carstens (1979)
- Richard von Weizsäcker (1984)
- Roman Herzog (1994)
- Johannes Rau (1999)
- Horst Koehler (2004)
- Christian Wulff (2010)
- Joachim Gauck (2012)
- Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2017)
Grand cross in a special design
- Konrad Adenauer , Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (January 31, 1954)
- Helmut Kohl , Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (October 26, 1998)
Grand Cross
- Hermann Josef Abs , banker (1988)
- Andrus Ansip , Estonian politician (2013)
- Augustin Bea , Cardinal (1960)
- Kurt Beck , politician (2004)
- Berthold Beitz , industrialist (1987)
- Ernst Benda , President of the Federal Constitutional Court (1983)
- Anton Benya , Austrian politician (1975)
- Karl Bernard , Chairman of the Central Bank Council of the Bank of German States (1957)
- Karl Blessing , Chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank (1965)
- Holger Börner , politician (1987)
- Willy Brandt , politician (1959)
- Heinrich von Brentano , politician (1955)
- Fritz Catta , politician (FDP) (1956)
- Wesley Clark , American general
- Cornelius Christopher Cremin , Irish diplomat (1960)
- Lucius D. Clay , American General of the Berlin Airlift (1965)
- Dipendra , Nepalese politician and Crown Prince (1997)
- Mario Draghi , Italian Economist, President of the ECB (2020)
- Wim Duisenberg , President of the European Central Bank (2002)
- Ludwig Erhard , politician (1953)
- Theodor Rudolf Georg Eschenburg , political scientist (1986)
- Patricia Espinosa Cantellano , Mexican diplomat (2013)
- Hans Filbinger , politician
- Hans-Georg Gadamer , philosopher (1993)
- Karl Geiler , politician (1952)
- Hans Globke , State Secretary (1963)
- Gyanendra , Nepalese politician and Crown Prince (1996)
- Otto Hahn , nuclear chemist (1959)
- Mehdi Jomaâ , Tunisian politician (2015)
- Jean-Claude Juncker , Luxembourg politician (2013)
- John Kerry , American politician (2016)
- Kurt Georg Kiesinger , politician (1960)
- Ban Ki-moon , South Korean diplomat, UN Secretary General (2016)
- Roland Koch , politician (2011)
- Hinrich Wilhelm Kopf , politician (1953)
- Norbert Lammert , politician (2007)
- Georg Leber , politician (1976)
- Richard Lehners , politician (1966)
- Johannes Lilje , regional bishop
- Jutta Limbach , President of the Federal Constitutional Court (2002)
- Paul Löbe , politician (1951)
- Yehudi Menuhin , violinist and conductor (1997)
- Pedro José Ribeiro de Menezes , Portuguese diplomat (1999)
- Angela Merkel , Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (2008)
- Peter Milliken , Canadian lawyer and politician (2012)
- Wolfgang Mischnick , politician (1973)
- Joseph Muscat , Maltese politician (2015)
- Martin Niemöller , theologian
- Karl Olfers , politician (1954)
- Werner Otto , entrepreneur (2001)
- Hans-Jürgen Papier , President of the Federal Constitutional Court (2010)
- Hippolyt Poschinger von Frauenau , entrepreneur, forest manager and politician (1982)
- Joseph Ratzinger , Cardinal (1994)
- Annemarie Renger , politician (1974)
- Helmut Schlesinger , President of the Deutsche Bundesbank (1993)
- Carlo Schmid , politician (1955)
- Gerhard Schröder , Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (1999)
- Karel Schwarzenberg , Czech-Swiss politician (2008)
- Elisabeth Schwarzhaupt , politician (1965)
- Lothar Späth , politician (1989)
- Dolf Sternberger , political scientist (1989)
- Edmund Stoiber , politician (2004)
- Franz Josef Strauss , politician (1958)
- Erwin Teufel , politician (2004)
- Wolfgang Thierse , politician (1999)
- Franz Thoma , Austrian politician (1959)
- Bernhard Vogel , politician (1976)
- Hermann Volk , Bishop of Mainz (1975)
- Andreas Voßkuhle , President of the Federal Constitutional Court (2020)
- Herbert Wehner , politician (1973)
- Pierre Werner , Luxembourg politician (1959)
- Otto Wolff von Amerongen , industrialist (2000)
- Franz-Josef Wuermeling , politician (1958)