Iron Crosses

Iron Cross From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: , This article needs additional for . Please help by adding . Unsourced material may be and removed. (December 2007) This article includes a or , but its sources remain unclear because it lacks . You can this article by introducing more precise citations. For other meanings, please see A stylized version of the Iron Cross, the emblem of the , Germany's Armed Forces. The Iron Cross (: (·)), sometimes mistakenly called the , is a of the , and later of , which was established by King and first awarded on in (now ). In addition to the , the Iron Cross was awarded during the , the , and the . The Iron Cross has not been awarded since May 1945 and is awarded only in . It is normally a military decoration only — though there were instances of it being awarded to civilians for performing military functions. As an example, the civilian pilot was awarded the Iron Cross First Class by for her bravery as a test pilot and was one of only two women awarded the Iron Cross First Class during World War II. The Iron Cross originally was the symbol of the (a heraldic ), and the cross design (but not the specific decoration) has been the symbol of Germany's armed forces (now the ) since ca. 1870. Contents Design 1813 Iron Cross 1870 Iron Cross The Iron Cross was originally made of a black-white ribbon sewn together as a cross. Later it was...