BlackcowboyBS

During the research for my upcoming book on the Orders and Medals of Hannover I stumbled upon this painting from Freiherr Knigge (1752 - 1796) who was born near Hannover and died in Bremen. It shows him in the uniform of the Hannovarian Knighthood. On his breast we can see a white enameld cross with a crown and a blue medaillon. The cross seems to be made from gold. The ribbon is black with two white stripes. My first thought was that this cross has some similarity to the Hohenlohe order of the golden flame or Phoenix order, but this one is quite different. 

Does anybody has any clue what this cross might be? I know that Freiherr Knigge was a member of the Freimaurer and the Illuminati for a shot time, could it be one of their orders? Every help on this one would be appreciated. 

All I can tell you is, that Atelier Spiegel was at this location from 1909 on (some other sources claims 1907) and wasn't there for a long time, some said it was closed 1913, but your photo proves them wrong.

I can show you two soldiers from Brunswick taken at the same atelier too, so you may want to compare the Kokarde, but if the 29th Regt was bavarian then the Kokarde should be bavarian too. 

Maybe he had relatives in Brunswick and went to this photographer while he visited them in Brunswick?

His forname was Dimitri

Well there at least two von Vietinghoffs in the lists of theOrder HdL from Brunswick:

Oberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff-Scheel got the Kommandeurskreuz 2. class in 1909

A Hofmarschall von Vietinghoff got the Kommandeurskreuz 1 class in 1892 and the Grand cross in 1909. He was Hof- and later Oberhofmarschall at the grandduchess of Mecklenburg Schwerin, so they must be relatives to your general. But I can't find his name in my lists.

hahaha that's so true, I had a similar experience when I was at the army and out in the maneuver, when two old farmers where joking about us, while we were doing change of employment with our machine gun, that the russian would have killed us all, if we would have been in russia during WW2. 

I think that this might be a photo taken by Oscar Tellgmann, he was the most famous photographer and had access to every Kaiser Maneuver and the emporer himself. There was a nice book on him and his photos called Kaisers Zeiten, the photo shown here might be even in it. 

wow great stuff, Thank you guys for posting it.

Yes modern history researchers are asking the question, if the prohibition of orders and medals in § 109 of the constitution of Weimar was one of many reasons why people aren't loyal to the modern state and were willingly following the pied piper from the right.

So many veteran associations jumped in and brought out their own medals. But as said very intersting part of German history. I am looking forward to see more of it. 

Hey Graham,

great stuff but some people may not know, that these items are no official stuff from any government of the Weimarer Republic or any of the federals german state. But still they are nice pieces and each tells a story of its own. 

must be the Kaiser Maneuver, I think that I read many years ago, that on the last day of the maneuver that civilians could enter the field and see their troops parading and posing. 

wow this one is a great medal bar and with the merit cross 1.class it should be possible to help to identify the owner. There can't be that many swedish people who recieved it. If you have names I can check if they got the Brunswick merit cross 1st class

I would love to present a prince sized war merit cross 1. class from Brunswick made by Godet. Please note that all of these prince sized crosses 1. class were produced after WW1 in the 20thies. How do you like this master piece?

27 minutes ago, Adlerhorst said:

I think that it is a fantasy item. In correct German the date would be 23. 02. 30 or even 23. 02. 1930 and they would have mentioned the first name HORST, too. Also the fixing system is not believable.

I would go along with Adlerhorst, that this piece is a modern production and not one from that time period. 

On 04/01/2021 at 00:35, Komtur said:

Thank you for the kind words!

But to be true, it wasn´t the whole story ?

The rules opened a possibility to award only the single ribbon to a decoration, one still had, if the kind of ribbon was higher ranking in the question of bravery.

This was a rarely used possibility and it seems to me very unlikely, to retrace such a procedure afterwards.

But it was:

Paul Dieckmann got his Crown Order 4th class with swords on the 2nd November 1905 because of his position as a military veterinary surgeon initial on the white ribbon (with black stripes). But his later merits has been so brave, that he got a separate black war ribbon to his order on 7th December 1907.

This medal bar and the fitting miniature chain came without a name. But the combination of orders and medals, especially because of the very scarce Mecklenburg Military Merit Cross on the noncombattant red ribbon for service in the colonies, is suitable only to him:

Hey Komtur,

could you please tell us more on this very special medal bar? How comes that Doctor Paul Diekmann got the non- and also the combantant version of the Mecklenburg War merit cross? This must be an amazing story or was he awarded the noncombatant cross together with the prussian one and later got the model for active fighter due to his decoration with the fighters ribbon? I love stories and secrets like that! I really envy you for this bar! Congrats on this one. 

Thanks

?

Interesting, why did a german navy officer got a japanese decoration for the war against Russia in 1904 / 05? Does anybody has any clue?

I would vote for the guy on the very left in the front line. 

wow this must be a rare combination a fighters and a non combatant cross on the same medal bar, I have never seen something like this before. 

well I read about the later added Hitler as well, I guess that these photographers or the guys working on them were real masters in what they did. Take the handcolorised orders and medals for example or think of the photos of WW2 where knights crosses or oak leaves were added on old photos. So it was pretty comon practice to enhance photos to show what people should see and wanted to see.

great photo and I am 100 % certain, that this shows the young Model. When I was serving in the German Bundeswehr we had an Oberstleutnant Kirschbaum and he wore a monokel as well. For me as a young Fahnenjunker it was pretty amazing, it had the touch of old noblese at this time. 

Long time ago! 

Great photo, what a pity that he isn't wearing any orders or medals at all.

Hi ArHo,

of course there is allways room for doubts, I will check again, but to me it pretty much looks like the waterloo medal. But I see what you mean if I compare the photo to the one of Georg Heinrich Hoffmann

Hey Arho, as promised I tried in to dig a little bit deeper. The dress that this elder gentleman wears is the possible key into the right direction. The frock coat looks like a lutherian frock coat, so it is the equivalent to the military pol rock but used by protestant pastors. The guelphic knights cross was the typical class which was awarded to Oberkonsistorialräte and Konsistorialräte. One of these 6 persons that you can find in the Hannoverian Hof und Staatshandbuch was also the abbot of Bursfelde, so this might be the cross around his neck. 

If you compare the neck cross with the hessian Order of Phillip you should find a crown and nothing between the arms of the cross. But on your photo I do see no crown but there seems to be something between the arms of the cross. 

If I find out more, I will let you know. 

Wow, great photo ArHo! I'll will see, if I can get some more information for you on this one. I'll post it here, as soon as I got interesting news. 

David, I doubt the russian, as he wears no russian order at all, but let's see, if I can dig out something.