The Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches (English: Eagle Shield of the German Reich) was an honorary award (
German: Ehrengabe) granted by the German president for scholarly or artistic achievements. It was introduced during the
Weimar Republic, under President
Friedrich Ebert and continued under
Nazi Germany. It was a metal disc with a German imperial eagle on a pedestal. It was a high and infrequently awarded honor, received by around 70 people in total.
Recipients during the Weimar Republic
Article 109, section 3 of the
Weimar Constitution entitled "Orders and honours may not be given by the state" enacted a ban on honorific orders. Nevertheless, there was a desire for the state to be able to confer symbolic honours and the honorific award of the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was created to meet this desire. It consisted of a 108 mm wide medal of cast bronze, mounted on a bronze pedestal and inscribed on the reverse with an individualised honorific inscription. The designer of the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was
Josef Wackerle. The award was to be given to outstanding individuals in the realms of art, culture, scholarship, science and the economy.
The award was made by hand written decree of the
President. The Ministry of the Interior made decisions about the honour at the direction of the
ReichskunstwartEdwin Redslob, who was also responsible for the design. According to Redslob, the form of the eagle expressed the "
idea of the Reich." In total, the Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches was awarded to twenty one people during the period of the Weimar Republic. They were:
The Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches continued to be awarded during the
Nazi period. From 1934, the eagle designed by Josef Wackerle was replaced by the
Imperial Eagle with a
swastika, symbols closely connected with Nazi ideology. The reverse continued to feature an individualised inscription, but was also inscribed Der
Führer und
Reichskanzler (From 1940, simply Der Führer). Otherwise it was unchanged.
^Hans Kauffmann: Adolph Goldschmidt. In:
NDB, Vol. 6, Berlin 1964, p. 614. Probably conferred on 15 January 1933. In the Lexikon deutsch-jüdischer Autoren, Goldschmidt's Adlerschild is not mentioned.
Wolfgang Steguweit: Der »Adlerschild des Deutschen Reiches«. In: Berlinische Monatsschrift. Heft 6. Edition Luisenstadt, 2000,
ISSN0944-5560, pp. 182–187 (
online)