Officers Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Robert Eugen Gaupp (3 October 1870 – 30 August 1953) was a German psychiatrist and neurologist who was a native of Neuenbürg, Württemberg.
Gaupp was an assistant to Carl Wernicke (1848–1905) and Karl Bonhoeffer (1868–1948) at Breslau, and afterwards worked with Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926) at the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich. From 1908 to 1936 he was a professor of psychiatry at the University of Tübingen. One of his assistants was Ernst Kretschmer. Following World War II, he was departmental head of health and welfare for the city of Stuttgart (1945–48).
Gaupp performed numerous investigations of psychological disorders, and is remembered for his case studies of mass-murderer Ernst August Wagner (1874–1938). He was particularly interested in correlations between personality and psychosis, and was an advocate of "pastoral psychology". For a period of time, he was also editor of the Zentralblatt für Nervenheilkunde und Psychiatrie.
Sometime shortly after the passage by decree, on 15 September 1935, of the "Nuremberg Laws"(officially "Laws for the Protection of German Blood and Honor"), Gaupp came to the support of a local physician, Albrecht Schroeder (pictured at left in image below), a collegiate fraternity brother in a non-fighting order, die Igel (the Hedgehogs), to which Gaupp also belonged. With the passage of the Nuremberg Laws and the preemption of organizational authority to permit Jewish membership in non-dueling fraternal orders (Jews had never been permitted to join German dueling orders), Schroeder's status was made precarious because he was married to a Jew, née Felicia Rosenstein of Bad Cannstatt, an outer district of Stuttgart. At a meeting convened of the general membership to decide upon Schroeder's suitability for membership given Schroeder's marital status and his "Mischling" (mixed race) children, Gaupp, otherwise unaffiliated with Schroeder (Gaupp was 65 at the time, Schroeder 44; and the two had never before met), declared before those assembled: "Wenn der Schroeder raus muss, dann geh ich auch." (If Schroeder goes, then I go, too.) Schroeder withdrew his petition sometime before final disposition by the fraternity towards his case, and Gaupp himself left the organization voluntarily around the same time, as he had pledged doing on behalf of Schroeder. The two men remained close friends until Gaupp's death in 1953.

Karl/Carl Wendling ([ventling]) (10 August 1875, Strasbourg – 27 March 1962, Stuttgart) was a German violinist and musical educator.
He studied in his hometown with Heinrich Schuster and Florián Zajíc, and later in Berlin with Carl Halir and Joseph Joachim. From 1902 on he was concertmaster at the Bayreuth Festival. In 1907 and 1908, he was concertmaster with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Karl Muck. He had his own string quartet, "The Wendling Quartet". From 1909 on, he was a teacher at the Royal Stuttgart Conservatory, where he became director in 1929.

Hermann Schomberg (22 August 1907 – 16 November 1975) was a German film and television actor.

Gisela May (31 May 1924 – 2 December 2016) was a German actress and singer.

Robert Dankwart Leo Riefling (17 September 1911 – 1 July 1988) was a Norwegian classical pianist and pedagogist. He was regarded among Scandinavia's leading pianists, and toured all over the western world. He was a Professor in Copenhagen from 1967, and in Oslo from 1973.

Jean Favier (2 April 1932 – 12 August 2014) was a French historian, who specialized in Medieval history. From 1975 to 1994, he was director of the French National Archives. From 1994 to 1997, he was president of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
He was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres since 1985.

Rose Antonia Maria Valland (1 November 1898 – 18 September 1980) was a French art historian, member of the French Resistance, captain in the French military, and one of the most decorated women in French history. She secretly recorded details of the Nazi plundering of National French and private Jewish-owned art from France; and, working with the French Resistance, she saved thousands of works of art.

Dieter Thomas Heck (born Carl-Dieter Heckscher; 29 December 1937 – 23 August 2018) was a German television presenter, singer and actor. He is known as the presenter of the popular TV program ZDF-Hitparade, featuring German Schlager music, from 1969 to 1984, reaching millions of people. As an actor, he starred in the TV play Das Millionenspiel in 1970.

Paul François Pierre Bocuse (French pronunciation: [pɔl bɔkyz]; 11 February 1926 – 20 January 2018) was a French chef based in Lyon known for the high quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. Dubbed "the pope of gastronomy", he was affectionately nicknamed Monsieur Paul (Mister Paul). The Bocuse d'Or, a biennial world chef championship, bears his name.
A student of Eugénie Brazier, he was one of the most prominent chefs associated with the nouvelle cuisine, which is less opulent and calorific than the traditional cuisine classique, as well as stresses the importance of fresh ingredients of the highest quality. Bocuse claimed that Henri Gault first used the term, nouvelle cuisine, to describe food prepared by Bocuse and other top chefs for the maiden flight of the Concorde airliner in 1969.In popular culture, Bocuse inspired the character of chef Auguste Gusteau in the 2007 animated film Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, the plot line of which was also influenced by fellow chef Bernard Loiseau's life story.
After completing his formal education, Bocuse enrolled in a culinary apprenticeship in Lyon, a city renowned for its culinary traditions. Under the guidance of some of the most skilled and experienced chefs in France, he honed his skills and gained a deep understanding of the art and science of French cuisine.

Hertha Töpper (German: ['hɛrta 'tœpər]; 19 April 1924 – 28 March 2020) was an Austrian contralto in opera and concert, and an academic voice teacher. A member of the Bavarian State Opera, she appeared in leading roles at major international opera houses and festivals.