James Clark

I haven't heard this before - does this come from particular SS regulations?

I like the plain blue RAD single long service ribbon

From Helmut Weize's update today - could have been nice....

I've had another look and I can only see the last ribbon as being white. However, I can't see anything of the reverse of the ribbon and because of the way it is mounted any fading would be uniform. This is because there isn't a "back" as such: the ribbons are wrapped round a cylindrical piece of padding - there is no flat front or back and the ends are round. The backing material is sewn over the ends and gives no access to any part of the ribbon that is sewn under it. I've made a slightly larger scan to show the detail of the set up. The label is not unusual but this is the only example I've come across with this type of needle pins. These are bent round from the ends with the points pointing towards the middle. The ribbons are 25mm wide and the height is 10mm.

Thanks Rick - I'll have a look in daylight tomorrow but it's pretty tightly sewn up! I'd call the backing charcoal grey - I'll try to get a decent scan tomorrow as well because the back is quite interesting in other ways.

Rick recently posted a ribbon bar including the Japanese Order of the Sacred Treasure here http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtop...st&p=230638 It helped me with this, which I've had for a while but wasn't sure of the final ribbon - looks to me to be the same: is there anything else it might be? I've often wondered whethere this particular bar might be the second row of a double row set.

I have one to add. There are swords on the ribbon bar but not on the badge.

Hello I'm trying to find out who was in commanded of Infanterie-Regiment 26 during November 1939. Axis Biographical Research turned up Generalmajor Moritz Basler as Kommandeur Infanterie-Regiment 26 from 10 November 1938 to 12 November 1939 but I don't know what happened after that. If anyone can help, I would be particularly interested in knowing who was in command immediately after Basler, especially if there was any kind of interim arrangement for the period between Basler finishing and his successor starting. Thanks in advance James

I have a little more to add to this. The source I quoted from above says that "the Order of the Crown of King Zvonimir could be awarded to Croats and foreign citizens in peacetime or in war for civilian or military merit". Unfortunately, the periods of "peacetime" and "war" are not defined. And although the award was first instituted by a decree of May 1941, this was revoked in December 1941 and the award was not finally regulated until a decree in November 1942. I don't know over what period awards were made. Regarding the Commemorative War Emblem, I agree with Rick that differentiating between an award with or without the state emblem isn't of much help. I've seen pictures of ribbon bar devices for the emblem, but they don't seem to have been worn routinely by Germans. I have a group said to come from the same German soldier which included the full size state emblem on a 25mm ribbon as worn from the button hole, but his ribbon bar only included the ribbon for this award without any miniature device.

The Order (and medal) of the crown of King Zvonimir was awarded as follows: Cross on white ribbon with red edges for merit in peacetime Cross with swords on red ribbon with white edges for merit in wartime Cross with oak wreath decoration for bravery under fire The Commemorative War Emblem (the fourth ribbon on the bar) was awarded as a ribbon only for a minimum of one year's service within Croatia or in an allied army outside Croatia. It was awarded with the state emblem for those in direct combat with the enemy or who had spent 6 months in a combat unit, or who had commanded a combat unit for at least 6 months. (source: Odlikovanja: Nezavisne Dr?ave Hrvatske by Boris Prister

Complete photo now added to the other thread:

Posted on the Iron Cross 1939 forum (as part of the thread ?Interesting RKT photo?). The whole photo is not available. Trautloft is not on Ramos? list of recipients of the Medalla Militar.

This picture came with a ribbon bar which includes the same awards as the bar in the picture but mounted in a different style.

An unknown Oberfeldwebel

Adolf Galland

Werner M?lders

This is also bad timing. The Spanish parliament has just passed a "law on historical memory" that essentially outlaws anything that might be seen as making the Nationalists or Franco regime look in any way positive. While the cult of Franco has been pretty much been dealt with for some time now, the new law goes a bit further. They're looking at whether all sorts of street names need to be changed if they relate to anyone or anything that people might feel a bit uncomfortable about. The "Street of the Fallen of the Blue Division" still exists but is one that's under discussion.

I don't think they would need to break up old bars - original hardware and ribbons seem to be fairly readily available. I've seen lots of ribbon bar backings of all sizes sold on e-bay.

I wasn't sure whether he was hiding the Swastika on the devices by cut-and-pasting a bit of ribbon over them on the picture, so as not to have the items removed. I get fed up seeing these but if people want to buy them they will buy them, regardless of what they are told. I do worry that they might be good enough to fool people in the future though (at least those without bogus devices). The main give-away is the over-reliance on unusual foreign awards.

I?ve recently been looking through the book La Legion Condor: Imagen in?ditas para su historia by Ra?l Arias Ramos (published by Agualarga Editores, S.L. Madrid, 2002. ISBN 84-95088-53-3). This book shows a very interesting pair of award documents from the collection of Jos? M. Campesino from Bilbao, who must have one of the most extensive collections of Legion Condor associated items in existence, judging by the pictures of documents, photographs and militaria from his collection. The two documents that caught my eye are both named to Feldwebel Wilhelm Schweikert, identified in the text of the book as belonging to J/88 (Jagdgruppe 88). The first document is his Vorl?ufiges Besitzzeugnis for the Spanienkreuz in Silber dated 31 May 1939. The fact that he evidently received the award without swords suggests that he was not a volunteer of the Legion Condor (who received the award with swords) but was a member of the German armed forces who served with the Legion Condor in Spain on an official posting. The figure generally quoted for awards in silver without swords is 327. The second piece is even more unusual. It is a document of entitlement (?Berechtigungsschein?) for the Verwundeten-Abzeichen in Schwarz, awarded for the wound Schweikert suffered on 28 December 1938 as the result of being shot in the thigh. The award criteria stipulate that the wound must have resulted from enemy weapons (?feindliche Kampfmittel?). Again, this award was available to those who served in Spain in support of the Legion Condor as well as to actual members of the Legion Condor. The document was issued on 29 November 1939 to Schweikert as a member of I./Jagdgeschwader 77, 2. Staffel. The total generally quoted for this award is 182. All in all, a pretty rare combination of awards. In fairness to the owner and the author I have not included scans of the documents in this thread ? I think the information is interesting enough in its own right. The format of both documents appears to be standard ? the preliminary documents for the Spanienkreuz are well represented in thread on this forum while the paper for the Verwundeten-Abzeichen matches the one shown in Detlev Niemann?s catalogue. I did a quick internet search for Wilhelm Schweikert and found one final piece of information. The OKL Fighter Claims and Supplementary Claims from Lists from the Luftwaffe Campaign against the British Isles, 26 June 1940 ? 21 June 1941 (available at http://aces.safarikovi.org/victories/doc/v...of.britain.pdf) includes a claim by an Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm Schweikert of 1./JG 77 for shooting down a Spitfire over the English Channel or UK on 07 September 1940.

I see the speck you mean, but no, I don't think it's a hole in the ribbon for a device.

For those who haven't seen it, well worth a look at Detlev Niemann's update from yesterday for a rare chance to see a pair of SS ribbon bars as part of an attributed SS-Leibstandarte RK group. (For medal bar collectors: the medal bar in the Luftwaffe RK group is also interesting).

Thanks for all your views. Unfortunately there is nothing more I can say about the picture as there is nothing on the back and short of the miraculous software seen on CSI I don't think it's possible to get anything else from the picture. The third ribbon is almost certainly one plain, light colour and there is probably a device on his shoulder boards in addition to a single rank pip but that's as far is it will go I'm afraid. Still, I hope you found it interesting. James

These are the best my scanner will do without having to resize or adjust in some other way. I don't think they're much better. I'd hoped the order of precedence might help - there seem to be a fairly limited number of possibilities of what is supposed to appear after the 1914-18 cross and before long service awards. But I don't know how this works in reality. I'm sure he has some sort of device on his right shoulder board but it just isn't visible enough even under magnification to even take a decent guess at.