[Ruy Horta]

Let me rephrase the question.

I know about the DKG's being a combat award and an intermediary between the EKI and RK, sorry for not being more clear about what I do (or at least think I do) and don't know.

Some combat medals were awarded almost automatically (like the EK.II in the Luftwaffe) other (and higher) required a recommendation albeit that there were "award systems" in the back ground at work as well (like early - 20 kills RK). Mostly the German award system was if anything systematic in how it rated bravery. The system rewarded continuous combat performance over single acts of valour. At least for combat this seems to have been a more or less transparant system.

The DKG is the only one that I can remember being mentioned as linked to political background (in more than one source).

The EK was traditional, the RK a replacement for the Pour le Merite, leaves the DKG as the purely "Nationalsozialistische" combat award. So some "limitations" wouldn't come to me as a surprise.

Since at least most youths (becoming) eligible for military service shortly before and during the war had been either members of the Jungvolk and/or Hitler Jugend, by choice or simply "Gleichschaltung", unlike the example mentioned above, exceptions would have been few. With the slightly older generation it would have been different, those to enter the military in the early Nazi period during the undercover Luftwaffe phase.

If I really start digging (almost literally the mess my books are currently in) I might find at least some of the answers myself, but I was hoping someone had a ready answer.

Ruy