Pour le Mérite in the context of "Monarchy of Germany"

Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; German: [ˈhɛʁman ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈɡøːʁɪŋ] ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German Nazi politician, aviator, military leader, and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which controlled Germany from 1933 to 1945. He also served as Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe (Supreme Commander of the Air Force), a position he held until the final days of the regime.

He was born in Rosenheim, Bavaria. A veteran World War I fighter pilot ace, Göring was a recipient of the Pour le Mérite. He served as the last commander of Jagdgeschwader 1 (JG I), the fighter wing once led by Manfred von Richthofen. An early member of the Nazi Party, Göring was among those wounded in Adolf Hitler's failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. While receiving treatment for his injuries, he developed an addiction to morphine that persisted until the last year of his life. After Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Göring was named as minister without portfolio in the new government. One of his first acts as a cabinet minister was to oversee the creation of the Gestapo, which he ceded to Heinrich Himmler in 1934.

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (pronounced [ˈɛɐviːn ˈʁɔməl] ; 15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), known as The Desert Fox (German: Wüstenfuchs, pronounced [ˈvyːstn̩ˌfʊks] ), was a German Generalfeldmarschall (field marshal) during World War II. He served in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany, as well as in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and Imperial German Army of the German Empire.

Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and awarded the Pour le Mérite for his actions on the Italian Front. In 1937, he published his classic book on military tactics, Infantry Attacks, drawing on his experiences in that war. In World War II, he commanded the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African campaign established his reputation as one of the ablest tank commanders of the war, and earned him the nickname der Wüstenfuchs, "the Desert Fox". Among his British adversaries he had a reputation for chivalry, and his phrase "war without hate" has been uncritically used to describe the North African campaign. Other historians have rejected the phrase as a myth, citing crimes against North African Jewish populations. Others note there is no clear evidence Rommel was involved in or aware of these crimes. He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

The Maltese cross (previously the Amalfi cross) is a cross symbol, consisting of four "V" or arrowhead shaped concave quadrilaterals converging at a central vertex at right angles, two tips pointing outward symmetrically.

It is a heraldic cross variant which developed from earlier forms of eight-pointed crosses in the 16th century. Although chiefly associated with the Knights Hospitaller (Order of St. John, now the Sovereign Military Order of Malta), and by extension with the island of Malta, it has come to be used by a wide array of entities since the early modern period,notably the Order of Saint Stephen, the city of Amalfi, the Polish Order of the White Eagle (1709), the Prussian order Pour le Mérite (1740), and the Bavarian Military Merit Order (1866).