Luftwaffe Bandleader 01

This "elderly" Leutnant was a career NCO raised out of the ranks-- bandleaders in the Reichsheer had mainly been Senior NCOs and Warrant Officers due to budgetary restraints.

His awards are very very strange, but typical of a noncombatant military official. Unfortunately the original focus is so blurry and the damage so extensive that I can only guess at several--

1) Hindenburg CRoss for WW1 NONcombatnats

2) ? This is most probably a Saxon Friedrich Ausgust Medal on sthe statute "peacetime"/non-frontline yellow and black ribbon

3) 1936 Olympics Medal

4) Luftwaffe 25 Years Service CRoss

5) Luftwaffe 12 Years Service Medal

6) ? 1939 Westwall Medal (?)


So here is yet another unusual but normal case where 25 years of military service does not indicate lofty rank. Many a military Beamter in his 60s had risen no higher than the equivalent of an Oberleutnant.


Courtesy of Ulsterman.