text: Background The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grades were based on four separate enactments. The first enactment,  of 1 September 1939 instituted the Iron Cross (), the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross (). Article 2 of the enactment mandated that the award of a higher class be preceded by the award of all preceding classes. As the war progressed, some of the recipients of the Knight's Cross distinguished themselves further and a higher grade, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (), was instituted. The Oak Leaves, as they were commonly referred to, were based on the enactment  of 3 June 1940. In 1941, two higher grades of the Knight's Cross were instituted. The enactment  of 28 September 1941 introduced the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords () and the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds (). At the end of 1944 the final grade, the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds (), based on the enactment  of 29 December 1944, became the final variant of the Knight's Cross authorized.
  Recipients
  The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) kept separate Knight's Cross lists, one for each of the three military branches, Heer (Army), Kriegsmarine (Navy), Luftwaffe (Air Force) and for the Waffen-SS. Within each of these lists a unique sequential number was assigned to each recipient. The same numbering paradigm was applied to the higher grades of the Knight's Cross, one list per grade. Of the 457 awards made to servicemen whose last name is in the range "Sa–Schr", 47 were later awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, four the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords and three the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds; 28 presentations were made posthumously. Heer members, including the Volkssturm, received 294 of the medals; 23 went to the Kriegsmarine, 109 to the Luftwaffe, and 31 to the Waffen-SS and Allgemeine SS. The sequential numbers greater than 843 for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves are unofficial and were assigned by the Association of Knight's Cross Recipients (AKCR) and are therefore denoted in parentheses.