Chris Boonzaier

I have the roll and will check and see if he is listed when I get home. I cant remember the name, something along the lines of "Casualty list of the imperialist invasion army" ;-)

He was not a rear echelon doctor, not even Divisional level. He was for all the time he served in a battalion of one of the Gebirgs Jäger regiments, which is closer to ground zero than either of us, or anyone who has written any of the histories. There are tens of thousands of incidents that happened in WW2 that are not in the books we read. It is a dangerous research error to believe that because you do not find a certain incident mentioned, that it did not happen. I do not know how many people were killed, maybe it was a small village, maybe it was 10-15 people, things like that often slip through the cracks of history. Best Chris

Well, as it was the only division he served in, from the formation of the division to the end... what other division could it be? As I believe him to have been a very credible man, I think the onus in on you to prove it wrong. Best Chris

Hi, super, although added to the Fob at a later date? Best Chris

2

2

Unfortunately the shoulder boards are not that readable.... Photo done in hannover..

terrible writing, am not sure if there is an explanation for the unit

This is an interesting immediate postwar pic.....

Some pretty brutal stuff. Local troops under spanish command liked to collect heads... :whistle:

Hi.. do you have any award documents?

"What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate" During the late nineteenth century, Italy joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in a defensive arrangement that came to be known as the “Triple Alliance.” Now this seemed like a good idea at the time. Italy had two potential major enemies. One was France. Since France was also Germany’s principal enemy, an alliance with the Second Reich would be mutually beneficial. Italy’s other potential enemy was Austria-Hungary. It would thus seem strange that Italy would form an alliance with Austria-Hungary. But there was method to the madness, on several fronts. Austria-Hungary’s great enemy was Russia, allied with France, and thus also an enemy of Germany. So German chancellor Otto von Bismarck arranged the Triple Alliance to keep Italy off Austria-Hungary’s back in the event of a war with Russia, by insuring that the “Dual Monarchy” would keep the peace with Italy, and at the same time Italy would have a powerful ally in the event of war with France. Of course, as Lord Palmerston once said, “Nations have neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies, only their interests are permanent.” As time passed, friends and foes can change. In 1902 Italy and France concluded a secret agreement that made hostilities between the two countries extremely unlikely, resolving various issues to the mutual satisfaction of both countries. But due to some bureaucratic turf wars, the French Foreign Minister neglected to inform the War Minister. As a result, for the next seven years the French Army continued to assume that in the event of a war with Germany, Italy would be an enemy as well, and continued to plan to deploy several corps on the Alpine frontier. This curious oversight continued until 1909, when someone finally tipped off the War Ministry. Meanwhile, the Italian Foreign Minster made precisely the same mistake, failing to notify the War Minister that a conflict with France was highly unlikely. This had even worse consequences, for the error was never corrected. As a result, the Italian Army continued to plan on the assumption that it would support Germany in a war against France, only to be blindsided when Italy issued a declaration of neutrality on August 3, 1914. And if that was a shock, consider how it went down in Vienna and Berlin, where the general staffs were keeping rail lines open to move Italian troops to the Rhine.

More! More! I love this subject!

Hi, the awards were what made me think it, but you never know, awards sometimes cross borders... The guy front right has something on his cap... at a push if the imagination it may be an edelweiss?

You da man! Thank you.

Is the 1st guy Leutnant Prinz von XXXXXX ?

Front...

probably a battalion staff members

I bought a couple of photos listed as 21st infantry regiment.... I am wondering if it is bavarian 21st IR I assume Regt commander

2

Hi, can anyone guess the unit? Thanks Chris

I know that ;-)

Ooooohh... for some of our members that would be fighting talk!!!!!!

Something fantastic happened last month. I put up an Article about a member of the 4th Zouaves who won a Croix de Guerre for a heroic defense in the Vaux-Chapitre forest/Souville in August 1916 as well as some German documents for the action. Then... I posted Photos of 2 random graves of men killed in the action. 2 Graves of 2 amongst hundreds of thousand of men killed during the battle of Verdun. One of the men died at the age of 22, leaving no wife and no children behind. Jean Lemieux wrote in "La Lune Rouge"... "Life is like a huge furnace. When we leave there is just a pile of ashes, photos, memories, a farce that two generations later means nothing. A white stone on a hill next to the church." I don't know what the chances are of a nephew of a man killed almost 100 years finding a randomly chosen photo on a website are... but I am pretty sure that they are very, very minimal. Please take a look at this.... http://www.kaiserscross.com/40056/134143.html

Oh crickey....! I did not think of that..... Actually, I had thrown this question into the open room at a local bar and a drunken overaged whore with running makeup and smeared lipstick mumbled "maybe they were corps troops, as both 1st and 2nd guard divisions, god knows I am old enough to have serviced both, had gone to the eastern front, they probably both lost their 2nd artillery regiments, which probably became Korps troops ...." I would never have thought of it on my own, Artillery is just not my thing..... :whistle: