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[QUOTE="Zapp Brannigan, post: 25967, member: 72"]
No, but like flyboys in every country, they got the glory and the chicks.  General officers got the most awards, because the Pour le Merite was as much a distinguished leadership in combat award as an individual bravery award.

Of 687 total awards of the Pour le Merite during World War I, 80 went to army aviation personnel and 5 to naval aviators.  Among non-aviators receiving the award were Werner von Blomberg, Fedor von Bock, Erwin Rommel, and Ferdinand Schoerner, all later field marshals in the Third Reich.

U-boat commanders were the other elite group overrepresented among recipients.  30 of the 49 navy awards went to them.

When you take out all the generals and general staff officers, aviators and submariners, those infantry junior officers who actually had to lead their men over the top of the trench and into no-man's land were pretty underrepresented.

By contrast of the 307 awards of all classes of Baden's Military Karl Friedrich Merit Order, the highest decoration of that grand duchy, 13 went to generals and 4 to monarchs.  Of the other 290, 191 went to company-grade officers.  Awards ranged from the Kaiser down to 21-year old reserve Lt. Karl Ens of Baden's 109th Life Grenadiers (Ens went on to earn the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in World War II).  The Military Karl Friedrich Merit Order is the one in the middle:

[img]http://home.att.net/~ordersandmedals2/Germany/DE_Baden_EK_MKFVO_OZL_HH.jpg[/img]
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