Chris Boonzaier

In all wars except WW1 the Iron Cross document was an official award document, all awards coming from the Kaiser before that time and the docs came from him as well, or in WW2 where they came from Adi, awarded by commanding generals on his behalf and the documents being the standard official award document. In WW1 it was a more or less spur of the moment thing to allow the generals to make the awards and there was no official document. Indeed, there were a whole lot of preliminary documents and unlike WW2 where the doc for the EK came from Divisional level, in WW1 the approval was from a high level but it depended on the Corps or Division as to who issued the document. In some Corps the douments came from the Corps itself, in others it was left up the Regt or sometimes even the Company to issue the docs. These docs were NOT the award, simply a confirmation of the award. In WW2 there were initially such low level preliminary documents for the EK, but these were soon officially forbidden. My theory is...... hitler probably had crappy hand written docs, was allergic to them, and therefore saw to it that quality (but boring) EK docs were availible for WW2 :-) anyone seen Hitlers docs?

Okay, this guy was in one of the famed Austrian Heavy mortar units... Can anyone make head or tail of these?

SOUTH AFRICANS !

Very nice indeed.... Do you have any info on the fighting the division was doing at the time? best Chris

Ironic that the most interesting period was 1901-1902, but because of the nature of the war, there is not really anything where you can actually write much about or add it to a list like the one above. best Chris

I would assume this was issued at the time when the HJ was going about swallowing up all other youth organisations. maybe the process was not yet finished so it is more of a transitional era doc. Old guard moving over, new guard taking over.

A belated welcome.... Nice site !

The wifes Grandfather was his Doctor for a couple of years during the war.

Nice...nice.... how much !!!!????

You just gotta love Randall knives... the one on the bottom I had for 5 years in the army... the one on the top is one I really did not need, but bought anyway... middle one is a German export Bowie...

Another one, at least this one is dated after the action there had started ;-)

Hi, 1910

This mask was taken to the States by a GI after WW1, I saved it and brought it back home ;-) I like the sand coloured tin...

A friend gave me this british fuze.... any idea if it was old stock being used in WW1? I cannot find it pictured anywhere ?

Could it be the stamps

what makes this so interesting for a South African?

And of course, his award doc....

Here is one from another head honcho, from a DKiG group.... Ever see another award where you get an extra certificate from the Chief of the army to congratulate you? And not just a note, but thick award quality paper.

The life saving medal is way rarer than one would think with all those you see on lists. An example..... during the war, the huge tomes that comprised the Marineverordnungsblatt listed rules and regulations and instructions to do with eery single part of navy life. With all the nights crosses and oakleaves and swords and other toys... there was only one award where the name of the recipient was published, in fact, it was the only award mentioned at all 8as opposed to regulations about other awards) and this was the life saving medal. Also published was a congratulations from the head honch at the OKM. Flipping through there seem to have been 2-3 a year. Here is the 3rd of a page entry where raeder congratulates the recipient

So... explain this to me.... Does the wife walk into Eatons and see something on the shelves... she walks up and says "Wow! This is a nice Medal of the Order of Grand duke Gediminas third class in bronze! I bet Andy will like it! I will buy it as an XMas suprise!" or do you buy it and say "Here... one of my presents, wrap it so i dont see what it is!"

Hi, From what I have read, Napier held 6000 Germans, funtioned a bit like a village. Maybe there was a jeweller amongst them who made the items for the guys? As I said, I have seen mentions of fantastic POW arts and crafts etc from the fort. I think civilians were interened as well. I dont think anyone had anything confiscated, no mentions are made of this any any literature from the area. There are a couple of documents on this guy in the pretoria archives, apparently he was only released in 1919... way..way after the other POWs, some were released during the war already.

Also very interesting to note... the docs were obviously printed for the units of the Division... the line "Major u. Regiments Kommandeur" is printed... so how did they know if the Regimental commandeur was a Major or oberst? quite simple, the "u. Regiments Kommandeur" is the same printing as the rest, the "Major" was added. So the Division had docs done for all its units, to be filled out at regt. level.

There is a big difference between WW1 and WW2 award system. A WW2 award was approved and accompanied by a doc signed by the Gen. who awarded it. Early on (1940 I think) all other kinds of award docs for the EK were forbidden. In WW1 it was different, the awards were approved by the awarding gen, but the docs were often issued at regt or Batln level (sometimes lower!). a lost doc in WW2 for an EK got an official Zweitschrift, in WW1 the company clerk could whip it out. I have one group where the guy had three Besizzeugnis for the EK2. Important is to distinguish between the dates on the doc. Some have just date of the award (as above) , some have the date of the award AND date of signature, some have the date of the signature, but not of the award. I have a group where the guy go the EK1, date of award and signature were a few days apart in 1917, then a few days LATER he got the Besitzzeugnis for his EK2... which had been awarded in 1914. I assume it was only aftr he got his EK1 that he realised "Hey... i didnt get an EK2 doc !!!!" it could be that in 1915 the Lt. got a crappy office clerk doc and when these came out he got them to issue him a nice one. as said before, there is no real limit as to how many docs a guy could have. Best Chrid

By the way, to be fair... the artist signed the drawing 1917.....

Not so fast... the document is good. The name, rank etc (all of what is in the second pic) is entered by hand not printed. Unusual as it might seem, documents with a division printed on them are not that uncomman signed and stamped at regimental level. In fact, this can even be found at Krps level.. but, lets hear some more discussion :-)