| General Honor Decoration Allgemeines Ehrenzeichen | |
|---|---|
General Honor Decoration, 2nd Class 1814 design | |
| Awarded by Prussia | |
| Type | Civil decoration |
| Awarded for | Merit in peacetime |
| Status | No longer awarded |
| Statistics | |
| Established | 1810 |
| Last awarded | 1918 |
| Order of Wear 1916 [1] | |
| Next (higher) | Merit Cross in Silver (Cross of the General Honor Decoration) |
| Equivalent | Prussian XXV Service Cross (Cross of the General Honor Decoration) |
| Related | Military Honor Medal |
 General ribbon of the medal  Ribbon of awards to Militär-Unterbeamter  Ribbon of non-combat war merit and aid, Franco-Prussian War  Ribbon of the Cross of the General Honor Decoration | |
The General Honor Decoration (German : Allgemeines Ehrenzeichen) was a decoration of Prussia. The decoration can trace its origin back to awards established in 1793 by King Frederick William III of Prussia. The various levels of the decoration recognized peacetime merit to Prussia. [2] These awards were often to commemorate long and particularly meritorious service or for special contributions from people who would not be considered for appointment to an order due to their rank. In general, recipients were lower and mid-level officials and officers.
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
Prussia was a historically prominent German state that originated in 1525 with a duchy centred on the region of Prussia on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It was de facto dissolved by an emergency decree transferring powers of the Prussian government to German Chancellor Franz von Papen in 1932 and de jure by an Allied decree in 1947. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organised and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 in Berlin, decisively shaped the history of Germany.
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He ruled Prussia during the difficult times of the Napoleonic Wars and the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Steering a careful course between France and her enemies, after a major military defeat in 1806, he eventually and reluctantly joined the coalition against Napoleon in the Befreiungskriege. Following Napoleon's defeat he was King of Prussia during the Congress of Vienna, which assembled to settle the political questions arising from the new, post-Napoleonic order in Europe. He was determined to unify the Protestant churches, to homogenize their liturgy, their organization and even their architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches.
The General Honor Decoration originally consisted of a First Class medal in gold, and a Second Class medal in silver. After 1814, the gold medal was discontinued being replaced by a silver cross for the First Class. In January 1830, the cross was made into the Fourth Class of the Order of the Red Eagle, [3] leaving only the silver medal for award. In 1890, a gold medal was reestablished as a higher level class. In 1900, the gold medal was replaced by the Cross of Honour of the General Honor Decoration, which was awarded along with the Second Class Medal, and a Third Class Medal in bronze established in 1912, until the fall Prussia in 1918.
The Order of the Red Eagle was an order of chivalry of the Kingdom of Prussia. It was awarded to both military personnel and civilians, to recognize valor in combat, excellence in military leadership, long and faithful service to the kingdom, or other achievements. As with most German orders, the Order of the Red Eagle could only be awarded to commissioned officers or civilians of approximately equivalent status. However, there was a medal of the order, which could be awarded to non-commissioned officers and enlisted men, lower ranking civil servants and other civilians.
