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    Artist

  • Steinhauer & Lück

    • Title

  • Officer's Cross of the German Order of Merit for Alfred Werner

    • Other Title(s)

  • Bundesverdienstkreuz

  • Physical Description

    Medal : Gilt metal and enamel ; 2.2" x 2.2" (5.5 cm x 5.5 cm)., + box (4.75" x 3.75")

  • Place of Publication

    1971.

  • Summary

    Gilt-edged red enamel narrow-armed cross pattée with pin backing; the face with a circular central gilt medallion imposed bearing a black eagle, wings outstretched; the reverse plain with stippled ground. Stored with original box showing an heraldic eagle. Also has official letter awarding the cross to Alfred Werner, from the German Consulate General in New York, on March 30, 1971. Inside the box (maybe not related to the Officer's Cross) is a small button in the shape of a Republican elephant.

  • Subject

    Medals, Germany

  • Genre

    Medals

  • Medium

    Numismatics

  • Part Of

    Alfred Werner Collection,, AR 7158

  • Accession Number

  • URL

Biographical/Historical Information

Art historian and journalist Alfred Werner was born Alfred Siegfried Weintraub to Ignatiz and Frederika (Silberstein) in Vienna, Austria on March 31, 1911. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Vienna in 1934. In Austria, Werner was active in the Viennese literary scene, editing the newspapers Gerechtigkeit and Die Stimme while also publishing poetry. Werner was arrested by the Nazis on November 10, 1938 and sent to the Dachau concentration camp, but he was released in March 1939, through the efforts of his fiancée Dr. Gertrude Bach. The young couple then fled Austria, first to England, spending a year in the Richborough, Kent refugee/internment Kitchner Camp, and then immigrating into the United States.

Upon arrival in New York City, Werner struggled to make a living as a freelance writer. However, he soon found success in political journalism, and over the next fifteen years published hundreds of articles on European, Jewish, and Zionist affairs. He was also an editor of the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia and the Chicago Jewish Forum. The topic dearest to Werner’s heart, however, was art, and by the 1960s he was writing nearly exclusively about art and artists, primarily focused on 19th and 20th-century European, American, and Israeli art with an emphasis on Jewish artists. He had a long-running art column for the Jewish News, “Views and Visions,” and was a frequent contributor to arts publications such as American Artist and Pantheon as well as a senior editor of Art Voices. Werner also wrote over twenty books, including important works on artists such as Chagall, Utrillo, Pascin, Modigliani, Gaugin, and Degas. Werner was also an art consultant for the Theodor Herzl Institute from the 1950s until the end of his life, arranging exhibits and lectures. Alfred Werner died July 14, 1979.

The Order is the highest honour that the Federal Republic of Germany bestows and was instituted by President Theodor Heuss on 7 September 1951, second anniversary of the founding of the Federal Republic, ‘with the desire to create a visible expression of recognition and thanks for meritorious men and women of the German people and from abroad for service in the fields of politics, socio-economics and intellectual work and for service in rebuilding the fatherland, and, as an award intended for all, for contributions to enhancing Germany’s reputation abroad

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Citation

Steinhauer & Lück: Officer's Cross of the German Order of Merit for Alfred Werner, Leo Baeck Institute, 2023.120.