Imperial German Iron Cross 1st Class 1914 with 1916 Award Document Dragoon Regiment 10

This is an Imperial German Iron Cross First Class of the 1914 type together with its original Vorläufiges Besitzzeugnis (provisional award certificate), the document dated 18 April 1916 and issued by the High Command of the 8th Army to a Rittmeister of the Reserve serving in Dragoon Regiment 10. The grouping unites the decoration and the paper that awarded it, a pairing always more desirable than either element alone. The cross measures the standard 42 mm across.

The Iron Cross First Class is the pin-back badge worn on the left breast, the higher of the two grades of the Iron Cross awarded for gallantry and merit. This example is of the classic construction, a blackened iron core set in a silver frame, the obverse bearing the raised crowned "W" cypher of Kaiser Wilhelm II at the center, the royal crown above, and the date 1914 below, marking the renewal of the decoration at the outbreak of the First World War. The reverse is flat and silvered, fitted with a broad pin and hinge for wear. The core retains strong black finish with honest wear to the silvered reverse consistent with period wear on the uniform, and the frame is solid with the raised detail crisp on the face.

The accompanying certificate is a printed form completed in manuscript. Headed Vorläufiges Besitzzeugnis (Provisional Certificate of Possession), it reads in translation: "In the name of His Majesty the King of Prussia, the Commander-in-Chief of the 8th Army on 18 April 1916 conferred upon the Rittmeister of the Reserve [Baerecke], Dragoon Regiment 10, the Iron Cross First Class." It is dated at Army Headquarters, 18 April 1916, authenticated "for the accuracy" over the signature of the adjutant, whose printed rank of Hauptmann has been amended in manuscript to his actual rank of Oberleutnant, and struck with the circular Prussian eagle seal of the Oberkommando der 8. Armee (High Command of the 8th Army). The recipient's rank of Rittmeister der Reserve is the cavalry equivalent of captain, held by a reserve officer, the very rank from which Der Rittmeister Militaria takes its name. The recipient's surname is written in a period hand and is read as Baerecke; the certificate firmly establishes his rank, his reserve status, and his regiment.

The document places the award with precision on the Eastern Front in the spring of 1916. The 8th Army was one of the principal German field armies of the East, the formation that under Hindenburg and Ludendorff had won the Battle of Tannenberg against the Russians in 1914 and had gone on to anchor the German position in the northern sector of the Eastern Front. By April 1916 the war in the East had settled, like the West, into positional warfare along a line running through Russian Poland, Lithuania, and Courland, anchored on the Düna (Dvina) river and marked that spring by heavy fighting around Lake Naroch, where a Russian offensive had spent itself in March. It was in this theatre of trench lines, raids, and grinding positional actions that the recipient earned the higher grade of the Iron Cross.

His branch is itself telling of how the war had changed. Dragoon Regiment 10 was one of the mounted regiments of the Prussian cavalry, but by 1916 the conditions of the Eastern Front had largely taken the horse away from the horseman. As the front congealed into fixed positions, the German cavalry divisions increasingly gave up their mounts, and dragoon, hussar, and uhlan regiments found themselves committed to the trenches and the security and patrol duties of a static front, fighting as infantry in all but name. A Rittmeister of a dragoon regiment decorated with the Iron Cross First Class in the East in April 1916 belonged to this transformed cavalry, a mounted officer serving in the dismounted reality of modern war. The First Class of the Iron Cross, unlike the far more numerous Second Class, was a comparatively selective award reserved for a distinct act or sustained record of merit, and its conferral on a reserve officer marks him as having earned particular distinction.

Condition of the grouping is very good. The cross is sound and complete with intact pin and hinge, the blackened core strong, and the frame and raised detail clear, showing honest age and wear to the silvered surfaces. The certificate is complete and fully legible, printed on period stock, with fold lines from storage, light toning, and minor edge wear, the manuscript entries, adjutant's signature, and army seal all clearly readable. There is no significant loss to either element.

For the collector, an Iron Cross First Class is always more compelling when it can be tied to a named recipient, a rank, a regiment, and a date, and this grouping supplies all four through its original 8th Army award document. The combination of the decoration with its provisional certificate, identifying a reserve cavalry captain of Dragoon Regiment 10 decorated on the Eastern Front in 1916, offers both a display piece and a documented starting point for further research into the man and his regiment. It will appeal to the collector of the Iron Cross, of Imperial German cavalry, and of the Eastern Front campaign, and it carries a particular resonance for this dealer in bearing the rank of Rittmeister on its face.