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Paul Reck and I had been having a discussion on East German shoulder boards in another forum in this club. I started getting more interested in them about a year ago and since then I've worked hard to fill out my collective. He suggested that I post a few of them. So here we go. Kevin

Rick,

Thank you for the information. I was getting ready to break out the reference books upstairs. I had forgotten that I had these boards.

Kevin,

Thank you for your kind words. I will keep you in mind when I go to sell these things off(which might not be that far away). I started collecting East German items about 4-5 years ago. Before I started with WW2 German.

I would love to see what you have sometime. Start a thread!!

Paul

Ok Paul, I have quite a few but only a few scanned. I'll start a thread on DDR SBs in the Soviet & Eastern Block Militaria & Awards forum. The areas I'm still have major holes are in are Volksmarine, Warrant Officer School, General Officer field SBs, Artillery, Para, Rear Services and Air Defense. I've tried to stay away from civil stuff, but have quite a few VP SBs as a result of buying a trading. Kevin

Perhaps they are Engineers? Those are the only folks that would have had a ready supply of sticks of dynamite. But even that would have been a bit of a stretch. Kevin

You are so correct!! That is why I love East German items as well. The problem is that I do not have much more space to add to this. I might be selling a lot of my DDR stuff off in the future.

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=2569

Warm regards

Paul

Paul - I saw that thread, and was very very impressed. I did a small bit of collecting DDR when I was in Berlin and could have kicked myself for not picking up stuff that has risen greatly in price in the past couple of years, like daggers, binos, reference publications, and anything para.

I have to echo Ed Hayes' remark from that thread, "I gave up uniforms due to storage space (= wife) problems." I've exceeded my spouse allowed closet space with DDR, Soviet and WWII U.S. uniforms, helmets, field gear, boots, ect... But DDR shoulder boards, collar tabs, medals and badges take up much less space so I've concentrated on them. Unfortunately much of what is on the market now is common and the lower quality stuff that was churned out in the last few years of the DDR. If you are intrested is selling or trading DDR shoulder boards, collar tabs or insignia, keep me in mind. Kevin

Paul - I used to have a small collection of TR shoulderboards, but sold them off. I currently collect East German insignia, to include shoulder boards. It is amazing how much shoulderboards remained the same in the East German Army. Here are a couple of examples. Kevin

Engineer field grade, Major to Colonel. Note that they used more pips than TR SBs to denote rank.

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The irony is that the Reichstag was more of a Soviet symbolic rather than purely military objective. It had stood unocuppied since the Reichstag fire of 1933. Kevin

Thanks again. Great info.

best,

Gerd

No problem. I had several opportunities to visit the Reichstag in the late 80's when I was stationed in Berlin and it was still a museum. It would be a massive and intemidating building to assault, ideal for urban defense. The building had been painstakingly restored, but you could still see those places where it had been damaged by shellfire and gunfire. In places they also left the graffiti of the Soviet solider which had occupied it. Kevin

Thank you. So that comfirmes the story in post # 2.

Yes, It is also interesting to note that Zhukov indicates that the three battalions that assaulted the Reichstag were commanded by a Major, a Captain and a Senior Lieutenant. I guess losses were so great that these were amoung the few remaining officer left alive and not suffering from serious wounds. Kevin

According to Marshal Zhukov's autobiography, Reminiscences and Reflections, Progress Publishers, Moscow, English edition 1985, "At 9:50 a.m on April 30 Sergeant M.A. Yegorov and Junior Sergeant M.V. Kantarina hoisted the victory flag received from the Army Military Council on the main cupola of the Reishtag."

The way we use "the mad minute" is right after BMNT (before morning nautical twighlight ...Army talk for dawn hahaha) or standto.

Everyone in the perimeter expends 1 magazine does a quick reload and then you sit and wait

Eric

That would definately let the enemy know where you are, which may not always a good thing in perimeter defense. This presents special problems when you are defending in an urban envronment. The presence of civilians would make this impractical. I've heard of and done "stand to" at BMNT, but never a "mad minute" at that time. Sounds like a Vietnam era tactic. Kevin

I first encountered the term in the late fifties and it referred to a special demonstration where all the weapons of a type division were brought to bear within a small area. Demonstrations would begin with a squad firing the M1, then the BAR, next the Browning .30 cal through mortars, tank guns and a variety of artillery tubes climaxing with TOT fire by 8"guns. It was an impressive display. Done today it would be even more impressive.

Bob - I remember seeing one of those demonstrations in ROTC in the 1970s, back then it was called the "Million Dollar Minute". Not only did it include artillery and armor but attack helicopters, AC-130 gun ships and Air Force fixed wing aviation....all pounding the same lifeless tank hulks on a hill. I guess if done today with inflation it would be the multi-million dollar minute. Kevin

Having been a mortar platoon leader in the early 80s, the Mad Minute was the minute before midnight when all mortar and artillery ranges closed. Rather than go through the onerous task of turning in opened ammuntion the next day, mortar platoons and artillery batteries fired everthing they had in the "Mad Minute" before packing up and going back to garrison. It was a glorious orgy of artillery parachute flares, WP, HE and even hand held colored flares and star clusters (everything but red which was the universal sign of cease fire). Kevin

Here is one of those postcards. This one is undated and the only one showing soldier wearing the actual EK2. No collar tress so I assumed they are not NCOs. Kevin

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Hi Kevin, welcome to the club!!

Thanks, I always enjoy reading the posts in this forum although it is not my area of collecting. Beyond a Pickelhaube that I picked up in Iowa years ago, all I really have are a few photo postcards of WWI German soldiers that might be interesting, Including a couple clearly showing NCOs & soldiers wearing either the ribbon or the medal for the Iron Cross 2nd Class. If anyone is interested I'll scan them and post them here. Kevin

Yes I noticed that it was single piece of ribbon, but didn't think anything of it. I just assumed that this was a common ribbon bar since it and the lapel bows only cost me a couple of marks back in the 80s. Kevin

Vielen Dank! Kevin

Thanks much for your quick response. I always assumed that the top medal bar was 1930s vintage because of the Hindenburg Cross . Is that true?

Reverse:

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Unmounted EK 2 along with a ribbon bar and lapel ribbons.

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Reverse side:

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When I was stationed with the U.S. Army Berlin Brigade back in the mid-1980s I purchased a few WWI Iron Cross 2nd Class related items at a flea market in Berlin. This was when I thought about collecting WWI German as WWII was too expensive and loaded with fakes. I eventually got into East German insignia and medals because of availability and cost, so I never really got around to identifying all of the ribbons on the bars or value. Would be most appreciative if anyone here could give me back ground info on these items as well as current value if any. Kevin

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Here is the section of the Wikipedia article on joining a Masonic organization, as coastie mentioned, you have to ask, normally no one will invite you -

Generally, to be a Freemason, one must:

be a man who comes of his own free will

believe in a Supreme Being, or, in some jurisdictions, a Creative Principle (unless joining a jurisdiction with no religious requirement, as in the Continental tradition),

be at least the minimum age (18?25 years depending on the jurisdiction),

be of sound mind, body and of good morals, and

be free (or "born free", i.e. not born a slave or bondsman).

Check out this article on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemasonry Kevin

Here is a sample of what the DDR civil honor list looks like from "Neues Deutschland". Award type, name, occupatiion and home city. Kevin

I have a few issues of "Neues Deutschland" from the late 1980s, one of which has the civil awards list. As I recall they were published twice a year. I know your decorations are from an earler period, but I'll see if I can post an extract here so you get an idea of the amount of information available. Kevin