Prussian Landeskriegerverband Honor Cross 2nd Class Kyffhauser H. Timm Berlin

A Preußischer Landes-Kriegerverband (Prussian State Veterans' Association) Ehrenkreuz 2. Klasse (Honour Cross, Second Class), awarded "Für Verdienst im Kriegervereinswesen" (For Merit in Veterans' Association Work), with the Kyffhäuser Monument on the reverse and the maker's mark of H. Timm, Berlin, on the suspension eyelet. The cross measures approximately 1¾ inches (4.5 cm) across the arms, not including the suspension rings.

The cross is struck in the form of the Iron Cross, with slightly flared arms whose ends curve gently inward. Each arm has a raised outer border around a smooth recessed field. At the centre is a raised circular medallion within a plain rim. On the obverse the medallion carries a beaded inner border and the inscription in Gothic script "Für Verdienst im Kriegervereins-Wesen". Between the arms, ornate scrolled letters fill the angles; on comparable examples these read P, L, K and V for Preußischer Landes-Kriegerverband, and on the reverse they are struck in mirror image. The reverse medallion shows the Kyffhäuser Monument, its tower rising from a terraced base before a field of rays. A fixed eyelet on the upper arm is stamped around its outer edge with the maker's name, legible in part as "TIMM BERL", for H. Timm, Berlin. A small jump ring passes through the eyelet and carries a larger oval ribbon ring. The cross has a silvered finish; published examples are typically described as silvered bronze, and the base metal of this one has not been tested. No ribbon is present.

The Kriegervereine (veterans' associations) were among the largest voluntary organisations in Imperial Germany. Former soldiers in towns and villages across the Empire formed local clubs that kept the memory of their service, paraded on patriotic anniversaries, and supported comrades and their families. In April 1873 a number of these associations joined to form the Deutscher Kriegerbund (German Warriors' League), which in 1897 was renamed the Prussian State Veterans' Association. In 1900 the state associations of the German Empire came together in the Kyffhäuserbund der Deutschen Landeskriegerverbände (Kyffhäuser League of German State Veterans' Associations), which by 1913 counted some 2.8 million members.

The league took its name from the monument on the reverse of this cross. The Deutscher Kriegerbund first proposed the Kyffhäuser Monument, which was built between 1890 and 1896 to designs by the architect Bruno Schmitz on the summit of the Kyffhäuser hills in Thuringia, over the ruins of a medieval castle. The 81-metre monument joins a seated stone figure of the medieval emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, who in legend sleeps beneath the mountain until Germany needs him, with an equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I above, presenting the new Empire of 1871 as the fulfilment of the old legend.

The honour cross itself belongs to the years after the First World War. The Prussian State Veterans' Association instituted it on 16 August 1921 in two classes. The second class, as here, was a silvered cross worn from a ribbon and required at least ten years' membership in a veterans' association, with exceptions for members over seventy, and possession of it was required before the first class could be conferred. The first class was a gilt neck cross until 1925, when it was replaced by an enamelled pin-back cross. The ribbon of the second class was 28 mm wide, in black and white horizontal stripes with 1 mm white edges. Museum catalogues date the second class to the period 1921–1933. It was instituted under the Weimar Republic by a veterans' organisation founded in the Kaiserreich, and it is not a state decoration. The cross is not named, and the recipient is not known.

Condition shows age and handling. The silvered surfaces have toned overall, darker in the recesses and in the two centre medallions, with wear to the high points of the arm borders, the scrollwork, and the lettering. The obverse inscription and the reverse monument remain clear. The right-hand edges of the arms show a warmer tone in places, possibly where the silvering has thinned, and the end of the right arm on the reverse has small dark spots. The maker's mark on the eyelet is partly worn. The larger ribbon ring is butt-joined and its ends are not fully closed. The original ribbon is missing.

Crosses of the veterans' associations record the network of former soldiers that grew up in every German state after the wars of unification and carried the traditions of the Imperial army into the years after 1918. This example, made by H. Timm of Berlin, the maker whose mark appears on published examples of the cross, belongs in a collection of Prussian or Kyffhäuser League material or alongside the Imperial service and campaign awards whose holders filled these associations.