Ulsterman

you are welcome! I did not know there was a 2nd class. Any chance you know where I could obtain a copy?

Found it: Weimar era Fire Service Decoration 1st Class-the enamels are missing. see pg.65 of Werner Bergmans' book,"Unsere Bayerische Orden" for the medal bar of KreisBranddirektor Christian Martin.

Hmmmm....Bavarian right? I don't think its Masonic. I've seen that too. Off to the books....Fire service decoration??

Makes one wonder if one can confirm via the "back door" German Colonial archives..... I would suppose there might well be muster lists for the original Schutztruppen somewhere... especially if Sudanese were contracted and paid for via the Treasury. Accountants have always demanded detailed receipts for cash spent. By the way-HINT HINT_ This would be a splendid JOMSA, OMRS and/or BDOS article. If only we had a few photos of the original 600 recruits. Makes one wonder if there was an old Zulu @ 1905 wearing a German and Boer war medal together who had been at Isaduhwana. Wouldn''t THAT have been a man to meet! Thanks!! A GREAT thread.

Good Lord Rick! Who owned THAT ribbon bar? Linguistic Sondefuhrer? Liason officer on the Romanian General Staff? ???

OMG!! BRAVO!!! Amazing information. Is the 5th Btn. listed at Suakin as 5th btn? Or is it part of a different unit? My roll must be incomplete or in error. Thanks!! You should publish these! :cheers:

Bravo!! I have been studying Tugrrhas myself for 5 years. Blowing up photos, I am convinced we have war time proof of BB & Co. issues by the smallness of the secondary characters.

Any chance he was one of them odd deckofficers who got promoted out of the navy in 1921 as a Lt jg that Rick mentions?

:cheers: congrats!! That Red Army Partisan medal picture was cool too!

Well, I have seen photos of Landwehr and Regular LS medals worn together. A threefer would be most rare methinks- Off to the albums to look....

Well, I would buy it. It was considered a form of house order up until the ban. There's an interesting book on the Nazi-Coburg connection called "The Royals And The Reich". There is an award list out there also, some of which is locked up at Windsor still.

Very interesting! I am surprised it is in English also. Where did you ever find that?

damn nice bar! :Cat-Scratch:

Very cool! A new collecting field. I noticed that some of the Horthy era Honved sports medals are really well done.The gold ones seem to go for fantastic sums at auction. The one for the annual army games was used as a prototype for a proposal for the Romanian Crusade Against Communism medal. As a second topic, the official Communist era sports medal that I see occasionally-was that allowed or worn on official medal bars?

Thanks Josef! Very informative and useful....to spot bad A-H bars!

No- post 5, mid way down, left side: "Klaus Donetz, unsere kommandant".

Well, proof positive there. Good stuff. Doesn't it say that Klaus was "our commander" on the first page?

Oooooh- Very nice. In the secondary source I run to it states that these were primarily awarded to support troops, esp. NCOs. Is that true?

Lucky man. Brothers In Arms was the best.

Very cool! A U-Boat veteran and a FI vet. Imagine that uniform! Again-HINT! HINT!...it would make a REALLY interesting article. Thanks for posting. By the way, was that his original patch?

Wow! Maybe one day I can go-sigh- Thanks for posting these. I really like the socialist realism painting.

Is he a Lt? From here, despite the cut of his uniform, those shoulder straps look plain. By the way-great quote and song. Ever bought his "Cal" soundtrack?

AH! Thanks. My confusion evaporates! I thought "MMM" meant the little merit cross. I am used to thinking "SL" for what you are calling the "MMM". My error. Thanks again.

SL= Signum Laudis. I have been told that almost every mid- level Austro-Hungarian officer got one, but combat officers got them quicker. An exception is below, a man who I think was a POW camp commander.