All Silent On The Western Front: A Hohenzollern House Order Group

[Rick Research]

I'm posting this for Ted Peterson. This excellent group was awarded to Herbert Mathiscik, a pre-war Leutnant der Reserve in Infantry Regiment 150. His HHOX was gazetted as Oberleutnant dR 11 July 1918, and he was demobilized as a Hauptmann dR aD. These medals came with a number of pre- and post-WW1 documents, but the wartime award documents are missing.

Why my thread title? In civil life Mathiscik was a teacher at a "Deaf-and-Dumb" School in Königsberg, East Prussia. The contrast between a silent life raising handicapped children and the murderous noise and... deafening silences... of the front lines is something to contemplate.

There is a person's life story behind all these awards. Sometimes we are lucky enough to find the echoes of those lives....

[Daniel Cole]

That is a very nice grouping, and an interesting story.
Dan Cole

[PaulChep]

The medal bar is confusing in that I the house order should be first and the EK2 second. Am I wrong?

[Bill M]

--Yeah, Rick. What's the deal with that, anyway?

[Rick Research]

Never! The Iron Cross 2nd Class was the premier ribboned medal bar award of Prussia. Often in the "anything goes" 1920s, a HHOX will be found totally incorrectly in front, but never was a Prussian to wear this in anything but first place.

[PaulChep]

Now that is really interesting information. Another words there is an order for which the medals must be mounted buy the EK must always come first. That is like saying the US Bronze Star is always mounted first and can be followed by the DCS, Legion of Merit and Purple Heart. I knew that the German helt the EK in high esteem but I did not realize it was that high!

[bhholst]

Hello Ted and Rick:
Thank you for showing these articles. It is also gratifying to see the Hanseatic (Hamburg ) Cross.
BTW: the Hohenzoller have become quite a bit more expensive of late. For those readers unfamiliar with this order or perhaps as a reminder: only officers were awarded it and the total number was at about 8,200 or one award per forty serving officers which does make it somewhat rare.
The latter information is from "Das Ehrenbuch des Militaer-Verdienst-Kreuzes", 1960 by the association of recipients of that Prussian award for NCO's and and other ranks (often called the "PlM " for enlisted personnel)..
Bernhard H. Holst

[Rick Research]

The Hamburg Hanseatic Cross here is the two suspension ring variant. That is, it has rings just like all "normal" German ribboned awards, not the usual 3 rings found on most Hanseatic Crosses.

The Hohenzollern retained a bizarre 19th century suspension, a heavy loop horizontally across the back of the crown, making it an awkward decoration to parade mount.

Mathiscik apparently miraculously made it through the entire war without a scratch.

[JensF.]

Hi,

about the order of precedence for the EK II:

Only the other kingdoms (Bayern, Sachsen and rarely Wuerttemberg) put their medals like the St. Heinrich Medal /Orden or Bayr. MVO/MVK at the first place of a medal-bar.

In my post about the non-combatant EK medal-bar you can see a Koenig-Ludwig-Kreuz BEFORE an EK II which is a really rare seen order of precedence.

Best regards

[Daniel Krause]

Thats right.

Normally the EK2 is the first decoration, followed by the prussian orders. Non-prussians were allowed to wear their highest award of their own country directly after the EK2 in front of other prussian decorations. But the saxons and bavarians ....... how wrote orson wells in "Animal farm" ? ... some animals are more equal than the others

Greetings

Daniel