Austria, Imperial. A Franz Joseph Order Commander’s Cross Document to Doctor of Crown Prince of Prussia, 1909

The Franz Joseph Order Commander’s Cross certificate is named to Dr. August Widenmann, royal Prussian Oberstabsarzt (senior staff surgeon) and personal physician of the royal court of the Crown Prince of Prussia. Dated to Vienna on April 28, 1909. Measuring 225 mm (w) x 361 mm (h), presenting two folding creases, light scuffing of the edges, and three minor tears, remains near very fine.

Footnote: August Widenmann was born in 1865 in Biberach (southwest Germany). In 1888, he passed his state examination to become a physician. Between 1892 and 1895, Widenmann served as a military physician with the colonial troops in German East Africa, where he climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Widenmann then traveled to the US in 1898 to study the military medicine of the Spanish-American War. Since 1901, he worked in the famous Berlin Charité hospital, before becoming the personal physician of the Crown Prince, and regimental physician of the 4th Guard Field Artillery Regiment. As part of the royal court, Widenmann traveled extensively. In 1903 and 1904, he visited the Mediterranean, Egypt, and Turkey, and in 1910 and 1911 Sri Lanka, India, and again Egypt. At the beginning of the First War, Widenmann became corps physician of the 5th Princely Army in the rank of Generalarzt (physician of General rank). After the war, he settled down to become a specialist of internal medicine. Widenmann died in 1949. The butterfly species dactyloceras widenmanni is named after him.