The civil class was revived as an independent organization in 1923 (Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste).

[12][13][14] In January 1810, during the Napoleonic wars, King Frederick William III decreed that the award could be presented only to serving military officers.

By World War I, the oak leaves often indicated a second or higher award of the Pour le Mérite, though in most cases the recipients were still high-ranking officers (usually distinguished field commanders fitting the criteria above; the few lower ranking recipients of the oak leaves were mainly general staff officers responsible for planning a victorious battle or campaign).

Instead of the oak leaves Prussia awarded von Richthofen a slightly less prestigious honor, the Order of the Red Eagle, 3rd Class with Crown and Swords.

Although it could be awarded to any military officer, its most famous recipients were the pilots of the German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte), whose exploits were celebrated in wartime propaganda.

The Pour le Mérite became extinct as a result of Kaiser Wilhelm II's abdication as king of Prussia and German Emperor on 9 November 1918.

This marked the end of the Prussian monarchy and it was never awarded thereafter; however the honour continued to be recognized for, and worn by, previous recipients.

In 1842, King Frederick William IV of Prussia, appointed Alexander von Humboldt Chancellor of the Order of Merit[55] [56] with powers to recommend candidates to this new civil class of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts (Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste), with the three sections: humanities, natural science and fine arts.

During the era of National Socialism in Germany (1933–45), the order was re-absorbed into the state honours system, and the list of its members was reviewed and revised according to the policies of the new government.

They included Einstein (who resigned his membership in the order in 1933, and refused invitations to renew it after the war), Kollwitz, and Barlach.

Active membership is limited to 40 German citizens, ten each in the fields of humanities, natural science, and medicine and the arts.

Foreign recipients in the "class of 1842" included François-René de Chateaubriand, Michael Faraday and Franz Liszt.

Later recipients included Theodor Mommsen (1868), Charles Darwin (1868), Thomas Carlyle (1874), William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1884), Joseph Lister (1885) Johannes Brahms (1887), Giuseppe Verdi (1887), Hubert von Herkomer (1899), Camille Saint-Saëns (1901), John Singer Sargent (1908), Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1910), Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (1911), Sir William Ramsay (1911), and Max Planck (1915).

New members of the revised order in 1923 included Albert Einstein (1923), Gerhart Hauptmann (1923), Richard Strauss (1924), Wilhelm Furtwängler (1929), and Käthe Kollwitz (1929).

Later recipients include Arthur Compton (1954), Hermann Hesse (1954), Albert Schweitzer (1954), Thomas Mann (1955), Oskar Kokoschka (1955), Carl Orff (1956), Erwin Schrödinger (1956), Thornton Wilder (1956), Werner Heisenberg (1957), Lise Meitner (1957), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1957), Felix Bloch (1959), Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1961), Karl Jaspers (1964), Otto Klemperer (1967), Carl Zuckmayer (1967), Henry Moore (1972), Karl Popper (1980), Carlos Kleiber (1990), Witold Lutosławski (1993), Rudolf Mößbauer (1996), Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (1997), Umberto Eco (1998), Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1999), Wim Wenders (2005), James J. Sheehan (2006), and Svante Pääbo (2008).

More recent recipients were Gidon Kremer (2016), Emmanuelle Charpentier (2017), Heinz Holliger (2018), Sir Christopher Clark (2019), and Herta Müller (2021).

These included the Kingdom of Bavaria's Maximilian Order for Art and Science (Maximiliansorden für Kunst und Wissenschaft), the Duchy of Anhalt's Order of Merit for Science and Art (Verdienstorden für Wissenschaft und Kunst), and the Principality of Lippe's Lippe Rose Order for Art and Science (Lippische Rose, Orden für Kunst und Wissenschaft).