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It was the first time that a citizen was awarded the Federal Republic’s new Order of Merit. And probably the last time that someone came to the Federal President without knowing about it beforehand. It was September 19, 1951. The young German democracy celebrated its second birthday.
The first of the red enamelled sheet metal crosses went to a lifesaver: On November 25, 1950, Brandl risked his own life in a shaft of the copper ore mine in Sontra in order to bring two miners to safety at a depth of 300 meters from falling water. He had dragged a completely exhausted colleague through the water, which in places was up to his neck.
After the award, the 25-year-old miner was particularly impressed by the aura of the head of state: “I could talk to the Federal President like I did to my father,” the Hamburger Abendblatt quoted him on the front page. “The good man’s song” was written above it. The miner Franz Brandl became a celebrity in the country, the first hero with the state seal of approval of the young democracy.
Around 261,000 Federal Merit Crosses
“A state must be able to say thank you”: This is how Theodor Heuss justified why the Federal Republic needed an Order of Merit. Six years after the end of the war, that was not something that could be taken for granted. With the “Cross of Honor of the German Mother”, the “Germanic Achievement Rune” or the “War Merit Cross”, the National Socialists had made many Germans lose their desire for medals. Heuss nevertheless thought it would be unwise to forego state awards. He wanted to do it differently than the Weimar Republic did: The first German democracy had completely renounced state medals of merit, because medals were considered a relic of the empire.
The Federal Cross of Merit is to be awarded “for achievements in the field of political, economic-social and intellectual work that served the reconstruction of the fatherland, and should mean an award to all those whose work has contributed to the peaceful rise of the Federal Republic of Germany”. This is what it says in the decree on the Foundation of the Order of Merit for the Federal Republic of Germany of September 7, 1951. Today, according to the guidelines, “all special services to the Federal Republic of Germany” can also be honored.
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