Ex-Imperial NCOs Commissioned in the Wehrmacht 04

Here is the ex-Bavarian career NCO's ribbon bar circa 1939/40 as a Lieutenant in the wartime Wehrmacht.
His awards are

1) Iron Cross 2nd Class 1914
2) Bavarian Military Merit CRoss 2nd Class with Swords
3) Bavarian Military Merit Cross 3rd Class with Crown and Swords

those two suggest a Sergeant's initial award #3 and a subsequent award #2 as Vizefeldwebel or Offizier-Stellvertreter

4) Hindenburg Cross for WW1 Combatnats

5) Bavarian Luitpold Army Jubilee Medal (which from #s 2 and 3 must be the 1911 version)

6) the offending Bavarian army long service award-- undoubtedly a XV years Service Cross. This SHOULD have been replaced by a Wehrmacht 12 and 4 while he was back in wartime military uniform-- but perhaps he refused to lose 3 years of his awards--or ran out of ribbons space on his chest!

7) The "1918 Wedding Jubilee" Medal, which was never issued as planned at Christmas 1918, and instead was bestwoed in the 1920s on the Luitpold Jubilee Medal ribbon (#5 again) as a Bavarian royalist's award. Allowed for wear under the Third Reich as a pre-1935 ban dynastic award.

8) I'll forgive his gaffe with #6-- this is the 1918 Georgian Order of Saint/Queen Tamara.

9) Austrian WW1 Commemorative Medal with Swords (so this was a pre-1938 Anschluss ribbon bar that he never updated--with Austria here as a foreign award)

10) Hungarian WW1 Commemorative Medal with Swords

11) Bulgarian WW1 Commemorative Medal on combatants ribbon



Courtesy of Ulsterman.