In the first two years, the Bundeswehr accepted 125,000 veteran soldiers and 37,000 officers. Thirty-one of its thirty-eight generals had served on Hitlers general staff. Eighty per cent of all commanding officers in 1961 had been decorated with the Iron Cross first class…..Officers were allowed to wear their old medals as long as the swastika was removed; it was often replaced with a cross.

Trentmann, Frank. Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022 (pp 398, 400). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.