Chris Boonzaier

This is also pretty cool.... And rather rare ;-) It is about 2.5m long... Anyone guess what it is ?

This is also pretty cool.... And rather rare ;-) It is about 2.5m long... Anyone guess what it is ?

I am guessing they were seperated from their original piece of cloth and just sewn on to that one to prevent the pieces getting seperated then lost?

Hi, That is a jump of Logic that is often pretty dangerous. My gut feeling is the badge with the doc is OK... but if I was to ever have another FW badge it would have to correspond 100 to the example you and chip have. Basically it is a cut out small bit of cloth... anyone can do it and after 5-10 tries... they should be able to get it right. So, even if the skull is good (and it very probably is) I would maybe pass on it for the 2% of doubt that bugs me. The black one has the 98% - 2% ratios reversed for me... ;-)

hmmm... I like the docs.... am not 100% sure how I feel about the badges them....

I am guessing the Trupp was so small they had to tack them onto another unit.. are you sure there is a difference in skulls, as opposed to it being seperated from its backing?

OK, Have been reading the back pages... being more of a document guy I am no authority on the Badge side of things. It seems the kaiser approved the FW badge... but turned down the the Rohr Badge idea. Rohr guys wore it anyway. The crux of the matter for me is still... is it supposed to be a crown Prince monagram... or a Kaiser Wilhelm monogram? It still looks Wilhelm II to me...

Here is the group in France... http://lagrandeguerre.cultureforum.net/t29949-un-peu-de-sturm-bataillon

The reason I began to ponder this is the following... On just about every Iron Cross certificate the wording is "on behalf of the Kaiser and King I award Joe Bloggs the Iron Cross"... because commanding generals did it on behalf of the Kaiser... The Sturmbataillon Rohr is the ONLY unit I have found in close on 1000 EK docs through my hands where it says "His Majesty Kaiser and King has awarded Joe Bloggs the EK"... The kaiser did award EKs, no question... and in these cases the unit altered the Document to say the award was made by the kaiser and not on his behalf... But the EK award docs for SB are PREPRINTED that the award is directly from the Kaiser. The implication is, that he reserved the right to make or approve their awards. Another thing implying a very close connection between the Kaiser and SB Rohr is him using them as his personal bodyguard when he fled to Belgium. So I toss the following onto the table... "We have assumed up until now that SB Rohr was the pet unit of Crown Prince Wilhelm and that he authorised their sleeve badge... I contend that it was the pet unit of Kaiser/King Wilhelm II and he authorised the badge (ergo... his crown on it)... and that the fact that their award documents have him directly awarding their Iron Crosses shows the special bond between him and the battalion..." Lets hear the counter arguments... And if anyone has the proof that it was the crown prince, please post it, only thing I can vaguely remember is Cron, maybe he said that...

Question answered... but another arises.. http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/55136-origin-sturmbataillon-rohr-badge-heraldry-angle/

My theory... The Rohr badge was not from the Crown Prince Wilhelm, but from Kaiser/King of Prussian Wilhelm. First off... I see no period "proof" that it was the Crown Prince whio awarded the badge...(Will hit the books when I get home and maybe proove myself wrong but my reasoning as follows... You dont just throw any old crown onto a badge... and you especially dont hijack a Kings Crown... As we can see on the following link http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rangkrone#Deutsches_Kaiserreich The difference to the Crown Prince crown is huuuuuuge... It is also not a Kaisers Crown, but it is a Kings Crown, a dead ringer for the "Prussian Kings crown".... (Wilhelm II was Kaiser and King) The Crown Prinz Crown has only 4 "arms" (or whatever they are called...) the Kings crown has 8, 5 of which you can see when looking at it... So the crown on the Rohr badges is 100% the crown of Wilhelm II King of Prussia... and not Crown Prince Wilhelm... Right?

It is widely accepted that Crown Prince Wilhelm created the Arm Badge for Sturmbataillon Rohr for them to wear in his honour. I have been doing some award document research and am of the opinion that this information is wrong... A well known French collector had a fantastic group, with one of the only SB Rohr badges known....

Hi, a bit of research I am doing has left me with the following puzzle.... Did Crown Prinz Wilhelm have a crown? Did he use a crown as one of his symbols? I cannot find much evidence of him wearing one or using one as his symbol. All the ebst Chris

Just bought 4 nice old cut throats... when they arrive I will get them into shaving shape and off comes the beard!!

here is a study in opposites !!

One of my first bits of Militaria was a Cape Towm Highlanders badge, given to me by one of my teachers...

What is interesting... Germany was stirring the pot in Morocco before the war... Morocco was not yet pacified... There were German spies trying to incite rebellion during the war.... and the French commander struggled to keep enough troops on the ground to assure the Moroccans did not make the most of the opportunity and rise up against the french. From my reading over the last 24 hours, it seems that he specifically WANTED German prisonners to be sent there... to show the locals that France was stronger than Germany and they should not hope for help from the Germans... So it was a very political move. Made the Germans furious and they moved French prosonners up into Northern Poland in bad conditions in protest. The Germans were complaining about the terrible condition in morocco, cruel punishment etc. etc... in in reality, it was pretty much what French Colonila troops/Legionnaires went through at the time.

Welcome steve! There are enough French speakers onboard here to help out I think! Look forward to seeing your stuff!

I think this is a natural progression, hard as it seems... Europe does not need the vast standing armies it did 100 years ago. No nation could afford it. Training a soldier is no longer teaching him to march and shoot a rifle... it has become expensive. And get this... they are no longer willing to serve for beer money.. ;-) And there are no national servicemen to fill up the ranks... and Germany is not going to invade anyway... The money would be better spent on proping up the police. In the UK it is especially painful because the names of the regiments are well known, as are the badges.... In countries where regiments were just numbered (France, Germany) you can kill a regt and it will pass more or less unnoticed... The famous 13e DBLE was murdered last year.... A unit that was at Narvik, Bir Hakiem etc. etc... :-( As stated above, for me the most logical solution would have been regiments to battalions if the goal was to keep tradition alive. The same side to the same coin... can the UK afford to keep the Gurkhas? Another fantastic tradition... but a Gurkha regt is a UK based Regt on the dole... .. and at some stage... the French might think the foreign legion takes the jobs of 8000 locals... :-(

The Canadian memorial cross is the most tasteful and byoootiful award of its kind.

Super... das reicht schon..... habe gelesen es gab ein austausch Programme wo gefangenen nach Holland und in der Schweiz geschikt worden sind... d.H. er war teil von dieser... hilft schon sehr viel... muss jetzt nür noch seine verwundung finden. Danke!

Hi, hier ist unser Man... http://gmic.co.uk/index.php/topic/10820-schutztruppe-iron-crosses/page__hl__+von%20+hadeln#entry105611 Was fehlt (unteranderem) ist info über sein Verwundung...

Hi Andy, Freiherr Friedrich von Hadeln , Schutztruppe DSWA war verwundet, wahrscheinlich in 1915... Ob es irgendeine Infos über Ihm gibt. Mfg Chris

Hi Jens, den habe ich gesehen, sind aber alle vorkriegs Blätter.. Würde gerne die Blätter mit verwundungen aus DSWA finden MfG Chris

Newspaper from may 1917.... REPATRIATION OF PRISONERS FRANCE-GERMANY AGREEMENT. TASIB, May 29. France and Germany have signed an agreement, through the mediation of Switzerland, in regard to the direct re- patriation of sick or wounded prisoners who are interned in Switzerland. The agreement will be shortly applied, and 10,000 prisoners who are now in Switzerland will be repatriated. Our guy landed at the Germany Embassy in may 1917...