National Symbols and the Politics of Memory: The Prussian Iron Cross of 1813: Its Cultural Context and Its Aftermath

This chapter in the edited volume War Memories: The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Modern European Culture  shows that the first Prussian and since the German Unification 1871 the German governments, throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, leveraged the Iron Cross medal as a tool of memory politics, although public interpretations of the symbol variously emphasized both regional, monarchical patriotism, and liberal, pan-German nationalism. Originally the Iron Cross was introduced by the Prussian king Frederick William III  in March 1813 parallel to the introduction of universal conscription as the first military medal for military bravery that was not only given to nobel officers and generals but to ordinary soldiers,