Order of precedence question

[Sam]

Hi,

My question: On post 1934 medal bars, should not all bravery/combat awards be placed before the Hindenburg X, even those from other nations?
Regards,
Sam

[Rick Research]

No. Foreign awards were always supposed to be worn after German ones*: this is one way to tell, with Austro-Hungarian awards, whether a bar dates from before or after 1938 Anschluss:

after that, "Austria" was considered just another "state" like Bremen, or Saxony, etc and no longer a foreign country.

There was always confusion: many mid 1930s bars INCORRECTLY placed a "Reichs" Hindenburg Cross before a WW1 "state" decoration. Likewise, because Austria had formerly been "Austria-Hungary," a lot of veterans incorrectly mismounted their (Horthy Regency) Hungarian WW1 Commemorative Medals as if THAT was a "German" "state" award.


* there are some weird atypical examples from WW1 and earlier (Mecklenburg-Schwerin, for instance) where a foreign war award came before a German peacetime one. But from 1934, foreign awards were always supposed to come AFTER German ones.

Time and place, it all comes down to who correctly interpreted ever changing regulations...

[McCulloh]

To Illustrate Herr Lundstrom's point: Stahlhelm stellv. Ludwig Cordes @1935 shot and badly wounded the night of November 3/4 1935.

[Sam]

Thanks for the information gentlemen. I've learned a lot from Rick's ribbon bar articles as to precedence, but I still get confused with some bars that I see. One example that I've already mentioned to Rick is a bar that has correct precedence for all it's German awards,but one, which is strangely placed after the HX. Thanks again for your time.

Sam