Chris Boonzaier

Vizefeldwebel Richard Wahl was a member of the 120th Landwehr Infanterie Regiment. He was gassed in mid 1916 in the Argonne and after his recovery served as a guard at an officers POW camp. He was obviously not with his unit when Sgt York won his medal of honor, but his Militärpass has an array of interesting signatures including the signature of Oberleutnant Vollmer (!!!!!) Wahl's company commander. Vollmer was of course the officer captured by Sgt York "German First Lieutenant Paul Jürgen Vollmer, commander of the First Battalion, 120th Landwehr Infantry, emptied his pistol trying to kill York while he was contending with the machine guns. Failing to injure York, and seeing his mounting losses, he offered in English to surrender the unit to York, who accepted." Other accounts have him calling for his men to surrender while Sgt York poked his .45 in Vollmer's ribs. The Group has Wahl's Iron Cross 2nd Class award document, his Wound Badge award document, His Soldbuch, His Militärpass, His Ehrenkreuz Certificate, his Arbeitsbuch and a fantastic field diary with very detailed and rather emotional descriptions of his "reluctant" service. Included are his scathing views of the brutality of the instructors on a machine gun course, his frustration at being posted to the front, general disillusion about army life and his disgust at the officers of the regiment while they were serving in the Argonne. He accuses them of avoiding the front lines. The diary would be a valuable insight to anyone doing work on the Sgt York Theme. P.S. most of the diary is transcribed and translated.... example.... "Upon my return Hauptmann Schmid informed me he had proposed me for the Machinegun Abteilung. I hinted that I was not of the right physical stature for this and that I was not in the mood for another back breaking course. He agreed and cancelled the posting. On the 23rd of October I was posted with 5 other Gefreiter to a combat company and was to leave with Hauptmann Dillerz for Muensingen. A counter order from the Generalkommando came ordering me to the Machine Gunners in Ulm. The Hauptmann and Feldwebel tried to stop this but the Generalkommando overruled. Here we Unteroffizier qualified Gefreiters had an easy time. We took part in the instruction but had our rest while the 19 year olds were put through their paces. How they were hazed! I could barely watch! An example, a physically weak man named Frank was drilled so hard with the machine gun that collapsed and got heart cramps. These lasted 2 hours until I and two other Gefreiter loaded him in a wagon and pushed him back to quarters. I could not stand watching this, let alone participate in it. Dr Deufel found a nervous heart flutter and an eye problem and soon I was on my way back to Ravenburg, inapt for Machine Gun service. On the 5th of November I was back in the 2. Komp. 14 days later came a question from the battalion if the 2. Komp thought I was apt and ready to be promoted to Unteroffizier. The company affirmed this but on the 20th of November came the message that Gefreiter who had front experience would be promoted first and there were only 4 positions. I would have to wait another 3 weeks. From the 20th of November discipline was strengthened in the company. The men had been misbehaving and the Hauptmann had to show his strict disciplinarian side. Extra exercising, arrest and punishment duties (Verschaerfter Dienst). I did not have to suffer any of this although the training personnel were closely observed."

Sure it is a nice piece.... but it is still a kids toy uniform.... I wonder if the bidders overlooked that???? https://www.ebay.de/itm/Uniform-Hose-Leib-Regiment-München-Feldgrau-Kinderuniform-SUPER-SELTEN/382309615196?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Hi Walter, passt schon wie du es geschrieben hast. :-)

Nice! Is it a Beamten award?

I wonder how this group got together? Bavarian, Saxon etc. etc.

Would of course be better with a Leiberring and Edelweiss, but still pretty nice....

Hi, seems to have the complete Wachmannschaft of Flossenburg... although there used to be many of them on the market as well some time ago... probably also half inched from the archives?

Maybe I am late to find this out.... but the Czechs have scanned and loaded up over 1000 wehrpässer out of their archives.... quite a lot of SS http://www.vuapraha.cz/node/121

My Bavarian was mobilised ans a Landsturmmann with no previous miltary experiance, then in April 1918 got the Prussian War Aid as a Bürovorstand, which I guess is an office manager.

Lets not forget, men could serve in a military unit at the front, then get wounded, invalided out and then get a war aid cross. I have a Bavarian group with MVK3rd class with swords, wounded, invalided, then the prussian War Aid cross.

Damn... I have checked every Schmidhuber in every branch of service 1914-18 born from 1885-1893... By coincidence, I have the company photo of the 7th compny 1909-1911.. instead of the 1911-1913... so he is not on it. There are 2 possibilities... 1) He did not serve in WW1 2) they made a transcription error and he is listed under something like Dghmidhuber, some of the entries in ancestry are really bad :-(

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Portrait-Freikorps-Flieger-des-Kampfgeschwaders-Sachsenberg-mit-Scharfschutzenab/391938255452?hash=item5b41572a5c:g:t3QAAOSwfGZaIpMF

Sometimes there are strange streams in peoples lives. Especially back them when folks did not travel that much. A local collector had a large group, including the full uniforms and Tschakos of a guy who served in the 14th Jäger Battalion.... and the 2nd bavarian Jäger battalion.... how strange is that??

I have been looking for the records of "Infanterist Schmidhuber" who served in the bavarian Leibregiment from 1911-1913... I have checked men born between 1887-1893 ... no hits (taht I could find) for a Schmidhuber born within that timeframe, serving in WW1, who had service in the Leib Regiment 1911-13..... I think after 1893 would be a waste of time.... but how far can I go backwards? Waht ywould be a realistic maximum age for service? Thanks Chris

A rather patriotic Bavarian to keep the MVK in the 1st place on the bar even in the 1930s! :-) Was there a Bavarian Regt with the strong Reuss connection?

I assume the fact that he never served 1870 and missed out on an EK makes it somewhat scarcer?

Hi, indeed, but I have been googling and both ways with the rank seem to have been used, with the line and without it.

Hi, I picked this up recently. I do not see any traces of an old name having been removed or it having been sanded on the back, but there is a possibility that the naming is not original?

Hi, I know the collector who had the Schörner Group directly from the Son, it was in his collection for quite some time. He kept it all together and the group was supposed to go as a lot to a collector in the USA, when that deal did not go through it landed up in the auction house, some of the group was placed in a major collection during the negotiations, what the buyer did not want landed up on the auction. The collector who owned it surmises the major parts sold directly may have landed up in the USA as the stuff that ended up on the auction was the kind of stuff that the average major US Collector would not be interested in. i.e. the "Bling" went, and the documents etc did not. I am a supporter of healthy skepticism, but having known about the group before it went onto the open market I have no problem with the pieces that came up for auction. Best Chris

Hi, 684 and 868. There was an unnumbered one on ebay some time ago which I stupidly assumed was fake, but in retrospect was very probably OK.

Hi, I agree, I included the "Life" in brackets as it is like a lifeguard regiment, but it is not technically part of the translation so "guard" being the best possibility. Hi, fantastic find! I know there are different theories on this, but I believe entries of the ring were dependent on the company the man was in and if the company Clerk had entered them on his own initiative. The Bavarian archive entries are also "mal so - mal so" when it comes to Ring entries.

Hi, a "Leiber" is someone who served in the "Leib" Regiment. The Bavarian "Infanterie Leib Regiment" could best be translated as the Bavarian Infantry (Life) Guard Regiment

I love non Combat versions :-) What is apparently the anomaly here is the Silesia EK1 non combat which apparently was technically not to be made to non combatants.

Dr Arno Hoffmeister... he was an economist who worked in the Posen Agricultural department. During the war he was awarded the Prussian war service cross (with an authorization to wear it) , An iron cross 2nd class on a white ribbon with Telex announcing it, the Braunschweig Cross on Yellow ribbon (non combat), and the best part of the group... the Silesian eagle 1st and 2nd class. I have discussed this group with a couple of the leading experts of the silesian campaign and documentation for it and the general consensus is that they are non combatant awards (based on Hoffmeisters past service, his service at the time of the Silesian campaign, and the fact that it was issued by a non Freikorps entity) this makes it doubly rare as the Silesian Eagle 1st class was not supposed to be awarded for service (as opposed to combat) , them there is his large Doctor title, his Luftschutz award with congrats letter some photos of him, and a death certificate. He committed suicide with his service pistol just before leaving on a duty trip to Belgium.... I have a bunch of other info about him, but these are the docs.....

Jup, that is the 1st thing that jumps out, but there are 4-5 errors. The same guy used to do EK2 docs to the same regt. I had Mailed the seller and he cancelled the auction.