A letter from the Luxembourg Government recommending Hanns for a knighthood
1949
Luxembourg National Archive

For his work during the war years, various countries wished to honour Hanns. In 1948, the Czech government announced their wish to award him their Medal of Merit Second Class for ‘recognition of exceptional merit in regards to the Czechoslovak Army and Czechoslovak people forcefully held in Germany’. A year later, the Luxembourg government announced its intention to award him their National Order of the Oaken Crown, the equivalent of a British knighthood. However, the British government had ruled that its soldiers were forbidden from accepting honours from foreign governments for services rendered after the end of the Second World War, and the honours were declined. Hanns did not receive either award; in fact he never knew about them.
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