Chris Boonzaier

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 :-)

Very observant Haynau ! Right on the button !!! Lets hear more........

Hi, only the part in the second scan is hand written. The HK is just for size comparrison ;-)

Hi, Very possible, there are documents like thisthat mention that a watch was given with it. Basically they are awrds at the commanding Generals perogative, a personal award from the unit as opposed to the EK or whatever that is from the state.

Close up

Here is a nice Bavarian 15th Sturm batln. doc. Usually they were training other units in assaults, but on occasion they were used for raids as well. This one broke into the french lines and tzhey took prisonners. best Chris

Very nice, EARLY EK1. Maybe Rick can find the Officer?

Found courtesy of Stogieman. OK, its not unusual as such, but it makes you do a double take.....

It becomes a tad more complicated though. Odendaal is not a German name, it is one of those adapted "Ex-European" names (Like Boonzaier, which is far removed from its original Dutch spelling) that you find in South Africa. They (Odendaals) seem to be centered in the free state area. Lets not overlook 2 things here... Bloemfontein(the stamp on the flap) is BOER territory, not british, there were no British troops in this area, in fact, in less than two years they would be at war with Britain. The saddlemaker whose stamp is on the holster must have been one of many private english speaking citizens living in Boer territory. It must be remembered, at this stage the Boers (Transvaal and Free State) are on the eve of a war with Britain. From 1899-1901 (more or less) the Kaiser was a big supporter of the Boers in the war against Britain. So, that just makes the history of the holster more foggy ;-)

Unfortunately saved this to small, they even took the trouble to make it a field press in an east african village...

Why is the writing so bad, so uncentered? Would a faker do something like that? It is a generic doc, could have any unit, any war zone, but East Africa was chosen...

It was on a German Ebay Auction. I was outbid by a german gun author, who said he would think of me if he ever moved it on. I forgot all about it until out of the blue he mailed me about two weeks ago. At the same time an American collector wanted it from him and he passed his address on to me as well. Once he heard I was not selling he kinda ignored my offer to him to visit GMIC