Rescue medal on ribbon (Prussia)
The rescue medal on the ribbon was on August 16, 1833 by King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Donated by Prussia. It could be awarded to people who had saved another person at their own risk. In the Free State of Prussia , the Ministry of the Interior founded a successor model on June 9, 1925, which was awarded until 1936. It consisted of a rescue medal (portable) and a commemorative medal for rescue from danger (not portable). The foundation of a rescue medal from the German Reich failed in the Weimar Republic . In the Third Reich , on June 22, 1933, based on the Prussian model, the Reich President donated a rescue medal on ribbon (portable) and a commemorative medal for rescue from danger (not portable).
Appearance
The award is a round medal made of silver and shows the portrait of the founder. On the reverse is the four-line inscription FOR RESCUE FROM DANGER , which is surrounded by a wreath of oak leaves. The front of the model in the Free State of Prussia bears the sovereign eagle of the Republic of Prussia with wide wings and the inscription REPUBLIK at the top and PRUSSIA at the bottom. In the Third Reich, the front of the medal does not have any lettering. It shows the imperial eagle with the swastika on its chest. In the Federal Republic of Germany , according to the law on titles, medals and decorations of July 26, 1957, the rescue medal on the ribbon of the Third Reich may be worn without the swastika. This version is often misinterpreted as a rescue medal from the Weimar Republic , which never existed.
Carrying method
The medal was worn on an orange ribbon with white side stripes on the left side of the chest.
Known porters
An early bearer was Prince Friedrich Karl Nikolaus von Prussia , who was awarded the medal in 1847 for rescuing a child from the Rhine near Bonn. Well-known porters were Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke , Siegfried Thomaschki , Ernst Zinna , Otto von Bismarck and the fighter pilot Oswald Boelcke , who rescued a French boy from a canal. Hans Pfundtner received it in 1899 as a first-semester student at the Albertus University in Königsberg . Victor Caillé received it three times.
literature
- Louis Schneider : The medal for rescue from danger , Berlin: Hayn, 1867 digitized
- Heinrich Doehle: The awards of the Greater German Reich. Berlin 1945.
- Kurt-Gerhard Klietmann : German Awards. Volume 2: German Empire: 1871–1945. The Order Collection, Berlin 1971.
- Jörg Nimmergut : German medals and decorations until 1945. Volume 4. Württemberg II - German Empire. Central Office for Scientific Order Studies , Munich 2001, ISBN 3-00-00-1396-2 .
- Olaf Wittenberg: The Prussian rescue medal from 1933 . In: Orders and Medals. The magazine for friends of phaleristics , publisher: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ordenskunde , issue 104, 16th year, Gäufelden 2018. ISSN 1438-3772.
