Recipients of the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold

Bernard Johann Heinrich Koenen (17 February 1889 – 30 April 1964) was a German politician.Between 1953 and 1958 he was the East German ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

Max Fechner (27 July 1892 – 13 September 1973) was a German politician who served as Minister of Justice of East Germany from 1949 to 1953

Herta Geffke (married name, Herta Kaasch: 19 August 1893 – 29 December 1974) was a German activist and politician (KPD, SED) who resisted Nazism. After 1945 she became a member of the Party Central Control Commission (Zentrale Parteikontrollkommission / ZPKK) in the Soviet occupation zone (from 1949 the German Democratic Republic), identified as a "true Stalinist" and feared on account of her interrogation methods.

Willi Bredel (2 May 1901 – 27 October 1964) was a German writer and president of the DDR Academy of Arts, Berlin. Born in Hamburg, he was a pioneer of socialist realist literature.

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Busch (22 January 1900 – 8 June 1980) was a German singer and actor.