The highest honour awarded by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg is
honorary citizenship (
Ehrenbürgerrecht). It is officially given by the senate, although the parliament must also confirm the senate's nominee. Honorary citizenship is comparable to the
Freedom of the City, an honour awarded by many nations. The
Golden Book consists of the signatures of especially honoured guests of Hamburg. The book, in actuality, is a golden leather-bound box and doesn't have fixed sheets. It was a gift of the family of the First Mayor
Carl Friedrich Petersen. In 1937 the German leader
Adolf Hitler signed the book before giving a public speech in Hamburg. During
denazification Hitler's sheet, as well as those of other Nazis, was removed from the book. The only Nazi signature remaining is from
Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, due to the fact that he wrote on the same sheet as the former German President
Paul von Hindenburg. The
Dalai Lama signed the
Golden Book during his 5th visit to Hamburg in February 2007. ;Decorations Historically, Hamburg's citizens have not been legally allowed to receive
decorations—only
medals or medallions. When it was first enacted in the 13th century, the law applied only to members of the senate and Hamburg's judges. It was, however, later extended to all citizens by the senate. One of the few citizens of a Hanseatic city to receive a decoration was the entrepreneur Alwin Münchmeyer, who later stated that this were his "falls of mankind".
Helmut Schmidt, former Hamburg Senator of the Interior and
German Chancellor, declined several times to accept the
Federal Cross of Merit, stating that he had been a Hamburg senator and, according to Hanseatic tradition, was not permitted to wear decorations. In 1843 a fire medal was awarded to the volunteer firefighters who assisted Hamburg during the great fire that engulfed the city from 5 May 1842 until 8 May. In total 4,858 medals were awarded. The inscription on the medal states "Das Dankbare Hamburg Seinen Freunden In Der Noth" ("The grateful Hamburg in need to its friends"). During
World War I the
Hanseatic Cross (German:
Hanseatenkreuz) was awarded by the three Hanseatic Cities of
Bremen, Hamburg and
Lübeck, who were member states of the
German Empire. Each city-state established its own version of the cross, but the design and award criteria were similar for each. There were approximately 50,000 awards of the Hanseatic Cross of Hamburg. ;Medallions In 2007 the
Herbert Weichmann medallion, named for the First Mayor
Herbert Weichmann (in office 1965 – 1971), was granted for the first time by the city of Hamburg, honoring "those—both Jewish and non-Jewish—who have contributed to Jewish life in Germany". Its first recipients were
Paul Spiegel (posthumous), who was a member of the executive committee of the
Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Hinrich Reemtsma, whose foundation contributed €500,000 to the renovation of an old
Talmud Torah school into a Jewish community centre. == See also ==