Professor Caroline Bynum (Department of History, emerita) has been elected to the Orden Pour le Mérite. The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max, was the Kingdom of Prussia’s highest military order for German soldiers from 1740 until the end of World War I in 1918. The award was a blue-enameled Maltese Cross with eagles between the arms based on the symbol of the Johanniter Order, the Prussian royal cypher, and the French legend Pour le Mérite (“for Merit”) arranged on the arms of the cross. A civilian version of the order for accomplishments in the arts and sciences, the Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste, was founded in 1842 and still exists in the Federal Republic of Germany today. Currently, the Order consists of 37 German and 36 foreign members.