Ribbon Bar question

[Wessel Gordon]

I hope I'm posting this in the right section so any admin or mod please feel free to move to the appropriate section if it doesn't belong here.

I have a reproduction of a Pour le Merite and might buy other Prussian/German medals in future. My question is: I have never seen any picture of either a Prussian or German officer (including the Third Reich era) that wears a ribbon bar on the left chest above the pocket as is the case with US and UK uniforms; all the photos show soldiers wearing the actual medal...did Prussia and later on Germany ever issue ribbon bars to their military?

Kind regards,

Wessel

[Lukasz Gaszewski]

Ribbon bars did exist in both German Empire and Third Reich and you can find lots of photos of German military wearing them,  even on this forum. Still, those ribbon bars were treated stricltly as replacement only for the decorations and medals worn on the ribbons on the left chest, consequently higher classes were not denoted at all and were usually worn in full. In the Third Reich upper classes of some orders could be replaced by ribbon bars, but that regarded foreign awards only. Ribbon bars for the upper classes of German decorations appeared first in the Federal Republic. Thus you are unlikely to find the ribbon bar to a Pour le Merite, either in the German Empire, or in the Third Reich.

Hope this will help.

[Wessel Gordon]

Thanks Lukasz