The Iron Cross is a decoration that has become synonymous with the German military of two world wars. It was awarded for gallantry or meritorious service in operations against the enemy.
Almost all recipients were men, since Germany prohibited women from joining combat units. Yet in World War II, somewhere in the region of 40 women actually received the decoration under the same criteria as men, for battlefield heroism.
The majority were army nurses. They received the Iron Cross for valorous acts of self-sacrifice, rescuing wounded under fire or saving patients during air raids and artillery strikes.
A couple of the awardees were famous female test pilots, Melitta Countess von Stauffenberg and Hannah Reitsch. But perhaps half a dozen Iron Crosses went to women who took up arms against the enemy and fought alongside male soldiers in battle.
During World War II, half a million women served in the German armed forces. They served as nurses, communications clerks and headquarters personnel, and some served as so-called flak helpers, not manning the guns but operating direction-finding and radar equipment and sometimes hauling ammunition.
Nazi Germany did not consider the front lines a suitable place for women. This set it apart from the Soviet Union, which had all-women sniper teams, fighter and bomber squadrons and anti-aircraft batteries.
Britain also had all-female anti-aircraft units as well as female pilots in non-combat air transport. The Americans and many other Allied nations did likewise, with millions of women serving in uniform.
As defeat loomed large for Nazi Germany in the first months of 1945, the prohibition on women serving in combat was relaxed a little, and some women actually received arms training. All the Iron Crosses awarded to German women for combat were earned in the last few months of the war in Europe, and all on the Eastern Front as the Red Army swept into Germany.
The Iron Cross was an old award, far older than the Third Reich or even Germany itself. It dated as a decoration to 1813, long before a unified Germany, and was an award for officers and men alike issued by the Kingdom of Prussia.
Its simple but striking design went through little alteration up to its reissue under Hitler in 1939. That is why all World War II Iron Crosses bear the date 1939, irrespective of the date of the award.
By World War II the award consisted of several grades. The lowest was the Iron Cross Second Class, some four and a half million of which were awarded during the war. It was worn in the full medal version only on the first day of the award and in full dress uniform thereafter; otherwise only the ribbon was worn through the second buttonhole of the tunic.
The next level up was the Iron Cross First Class, awarded 300,000 times, including twice to women. It was worn on the left breast pocket as a badge.
Next up was the most famous level, the Knight's Cross, worn around the neck. Unlike the erroneous impression given by many films and computer games today, which show German officers always with the Knight's Cross, it was in fact a rare and illustrious award, equal in status to the U.S. Medal of Honor or the British Victoria Cross, and given out in small numbers. Just over 7,000 were awarded during World War II.
Many men won more than one Knight's Cross, so special devices were affixed to the medal to show this. The Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves indicated two awards, with Oak Leaves and Swords three awards, and with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds four. The rarest, the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, was for five awards and was awarded only once, to the famous Stuka pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
There was one more grade above the Knight's Cross: the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, founded in 1813 and resurrected by the Nazis. The Grand Cross was also awarded only once in World War II, to Hermann Göring, head of the German air force.
Regarding female recipients of the Iron Cross, records are incomplete, and due to the confusion of the last months of the war a lot of material has been lost. But several combat actions do stand out and can be reconstructed.
The Soviet advance west had reached the Oder River by early February 1945, and here the Red Army halted to consolidate the gains it had made in three weeks of heavy fighting through Poland and East Prussia. The Oder was defended by a motley collection of worn-out infantry, panzer grenadier and panzer divisions, supported by a wide variety of emergency formations including Volkssturm home guard units and Hitler Youths from towns on the river's west bank.
The Red Army was regrouping for the final drive on Berlin but continued to conduct local operations and strong patrol activities. Fürstenberg was one such river town to come under threat.
On April 2, 1945, Soviet troops crossed the Oder to the north near Aurith and pushed into the Ziltendorfer valley. On April 3, the 600-meter-long bridge at Fürstenberg was blown up in the nick of time, preventing a direct Soviet crossing at the town. The young pioneer who was killed setting off the charges, Ernst Jürgensen, was subsequently awarded the Knight's Cross for his heroism and self-sacrifice.
Red Army forces crossed the Oder on April 3 one and a half kilometers south of the town at Levetz. Fierce German resistance prevented the Soviets from unifying their two bridgeheads and isolating and capturing Fürstenberg.
Commanding in the town was Major Kedsin of the 98th Grenadier Regiment. One of the women soldiers on duty was a signaller named Anna Herzekorn.
During the fighting around the town's perimeter, Herzekorn on her own initiative armed herself and, leaving her post, which was under fire, gathered together a group of teenage Hitler Youth boys carrying rifles and panzerfausts. Herzekorn led the ad hoc battle group forward to reoccupy a village on the Fürstenberg perimeter that had been evacuated earlier.
Ordering her soldiers into defensive positions, it appears that Herzekorn and the dozen Hitler Youths managed to hold the village for a while before being relieved by regular German troops. On March 5, 1945, Erna Herzekorn was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class for her leadership and courage under fire.
One of the most dramatic examples of a woman entering combat in 1945 occurred at the town of Greifenhagen on March 12, during a fierce Soviet tank assault. Number Four Battery, Heavy Flak Battalion 326 of the Luftwaffe, was re-rolled to anti-tank defense, its 88-millimeter guns having proved themselves formidable tank busters on several war fronts.
The unit had been sent forward from Berlin and had two guns in place at Messing and four defending Greifenhagen. In command of one of the guns was Sergeant Herbert Jünger, whose weapon covered a road southeast of the town.
Thirty-year-old Hedwig Kürte's husband was one of Jünger's gunners, and she had volunteered as a Luftwaffe flak helper. Soviet T-34 tanks advanced on the position.
When the position came under fire, Kürte left her post, jumped on a bicycle and rode to the position. She began helping the wounded and hauling ammunition under heavy fire, making repeated trips as Jünger kept the 88 in action blasting the Soviet tanks.
As crewmen were wounded, Kürte would give them first aid before resuming running out under fire to collect more shells. During her time at the gun position, the Germans managed to knock out seven Soviet tanks using the 88, and as the fighting was very close, two more were knocked out by panzerfaust.
Several crew members were wounded, and Kürte continued her duties until she herself was wounded by shrapnel and evacuated to hospital. Sergeant Jünger kept the 88 in action until the following day, accounting in total for 13 tanks. He received the Knight's Cross, while Hedwig Kürte was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class and the Wound Badge in Black.
Unfortunately for historians, there is not much surviving detail to the stories of other women awarded the Iron Cross in the last weeks of the war in combat, just citation dates and perhaps one sentence about what happened during the action. The examples of Herzekorn and Kürte give some flavor of the capabilities of women volunteers in action on the Eastern Front in 1945, and the unusual circumstances that led them to receive Germany's iconic award for bravery in battle.