Recipients of the Iron Cross (1939)

Josef Mengele ( 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979), also known as the Angel of Death (German: Todesengel) and the White Angel (German: der Weisse Engel or Weißer Engel), was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II. He is mainly remembered for his actions at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he performed deadly experiments on prisoners and was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be killed in the gas chambers. With Red Army troops sweeping through Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometers (170 mi) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, just 10 days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.

Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich (HY-drik, ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust.

Helmut Heinrich Waldemar Schmidt (23 December 1918 – 10 November 2015) was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974 to 1982.

Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg ( 15 November 1907 – 21 July 1944) was a German army officer best known for his failed attempt on 20 July 1944 to assassinate Adolf Hitler at the Wolf's Lair and remove the Nazi Party from power. Along with Henning von Tresckow and Hans Oster, he was one of the central figures of the German resistance to Nazism within the Wehrmacht. For his involvement in the movement, he was executed by firing squad shortly after Operation Valkyrie.

Walter Braemer (7 January 1883 – 13 June 1955) was a general in the Reichswehr and the Wehrmacht and a high-ranking SS commander during the Nazi era. He was a Nazi criminal responsible for mass murders of the civilian population of Bromberg/Bydgoszcz in Poland at the outset of the Second World War, and later for crimes against humanity in the Hol­o­caust in the Soviet Union. He escaped prosecution and punishment after the war despite having been held for 2½ years as a prisoner of war by the British.

Werner Wolff (28 November 1922 – 19 or 29 March 1945) was an Obersturmführer (first lieutenant), in the 1. SS Panzer Division 'Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler' (LSSAH) of the Waffen-SS, who was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. This was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership by Nazi Germany during World War II.

Otto Günsche (24 September 1917 – 2 October 2003) was a Sturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS and a member of 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) before he became Adolf Hitler's personal adjutant. He was captured by soldiers of the Red Army on 2 May 1945. After various prisons and labour camps in the USSR, he was released from Bautzen Penitentiary on 2 May 1956.

Wilhelm Mohnke (15 March 1911 – 6 August 2001) was one of the original members of the SS-Staff Guard (Stabswache) "Berlin" formed in March 1933. From those ranks, Mohnke rose to become one of Adolf Hitler's last remaining generals. He joined the Nazi Party in September 1931.

Oskar Paul Dirlewanger (26 September 1895 – c.) was a German military officer (SS-Oberführer) and war criminal who served as the founder and commander of the Nazi SS penal unit "Dirlewanger" during World War II. Serving in Poland and in Belarus, his name is closely linked to some of the most notorious crimes of the war. He also fought in World War I, the post-World War I conflicts, and the Spanish Civil War. He reportedly died after World War II while in Allied custody. According to Timothy Snyder, "in all the theaters of the Second World War, few could compete in cruelty with Dirlewanger".

Arthur Nebe (13 November 1894 – 21 March 1945) was a key functionary in the security and police apparatus of Nazi Germany and a Holocaust perpetrator.