PKeating

That's a nice piece! Last year, I had to get some French miniatures for Patrick Churchill - ex-N? 4 Commando - from Arthus Bertrand and, of course, they are smaller than British miniatures so they were going to look a bit odd mounted with his British campaign stars and medals. Another veteran remembered having some French-made miniatures of British medals back in the 1950s but we couldn't find any. So we mounted his French awards together and he wore them under his British miniature medal bar. PK

That's a nice piece! Last year, I had to get some French miniatures for Patrick Churchill - ex-N? 4 Commando - from Arthus Bertrand and, of course, they are smaller than British miniatures so they were going to look a bit odd mounted with his British campaign stars and medals. Another veteran remembered having some French-made miniatures of British medals back in the 1950s but we couldn't find any. So we mounted his French awards together and he wore them under his British miniature medal bar. PK

He was one of four NCOs from the Das Reich Division transferred to SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 500's Field Training Company as instructors late in 1943. PK

That's not often seen, Hardy. Nice photograph! He might have been a signaller in another motorised part of the regiment, such as the Aufkl?rungs-Abteilung. Here's a snapshot of another tanker wearing a badge not often seen on a black wrapper. I have several of the same man.

Well, there was a guy who jumped an original RZ20 chute in England recently. Anyway, I think most guys used these to keep their cigarettes dry or as muzzle covers. The late holder of the above soldbuch certainly hadn't used one as its makers intended when he arrived at SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 600. However, the doctor was an understanding fellow and wrote what he had up as a Code 24 rather than a Code 14 or 15, contracting an STD being a chargeable offence in most armies, including the Wehrmacht/Waffen-SS. In fact, I have never seen a soldbuch containing a reference to Codes 14 (syphilis) or 15 (Other STDs). They usually contain '24', which refers to "non-sexually transmitted genital problems". So off to the clinic he went, but it didn't save him from an early death on the battlefield in February 1945, poor fellow. PK

Despite the stern instructions to dispose of by burning after use, these are reusable and still work after more than sixty years. PK

And...here he is: Now you know his DoB, PoB and where he died. It would appear that he was a casualty of the Warsaw Uprising, which lasted from 1.8.1944 to 2.10.1944. There was fierce fighting in Warsaw's Praga district, referred to as Area VI by the Polish Home Army (AK). There are several references to the fighting in the Warsaw suburb of Praga in this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising OK, so it's Wikipedia, but it's a starting point. Praga was where the Soviet Army stopped and waited for the Uprising to be suppressed by the Germans. The Reds reached Praga on 10.9.1944. If Gefreiter Hatheier was KIA on 13.9.1944, as opposed to being wounded earlier and dying on that day, he may have been killed facing Russians or Poles serving in the Soviet Army. By 13.9.1944, the Soviets were in possession of Praga. He is wearing a Croatian medal. The German force retreating westwards ahead of the Soviet advance through the Praga district was IV. SS-Panzerkorps, which was raised in France in 1943 and served in the Balkans prior to being transferred to the Eastern Front. Josef Hatheier might have been with one of the Heer units attached to this formation. IV. SS-PK's September 1944 ORBAT shows 73. Infanterie-Division: http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Gliede...onen/73ID-R.htm 73. ID fought in southern Russia and the Crimea and was almost destroyed in Sevastopol in May 1944. It was reformed in Hungary. I'm not saying that Josef Hatheier was with one of 73. ID's infantry or, by 1944, grenadier regiments. I'm just indulging in some conjecture. He might have been with one of the Heer units established in the Praga district before the Soviet onslaught. He wears no other decorations in the photograph, which postdates 1941 and the establishment of Croatia. The lack of a Winter War ribbon suggests that he joined the army after that first winter campaign, which tallies with his DoB. RAD service at 18, followed by military service, would have seen him completing basic training and being transferred to a combat unit at the age of 19, in 1943. He may have received the Croatian award for the Crimea. But as I said, this is just conjecture. You could try some sleuthing work with the German telephone book, searching for Hatheiers around Altheim. There is also an Altheim in Austria. Good luck. PK

Sent you an e-mail! Just confirmed that Hatheier does indeed exist. I must have been groggily typing it when I checked. PK

Can't find the name "Hatheier" anywhere. Not listed in the German War Graves files. Nor does a Google search turn up such a name. Anyone got a German telephone directory to see if this name exists? PK

I am getting so fed up with YouTube's failure to fix the bug rendering Mac users unable to see the videos...

Lovely group, Bill! I know only two groups of similar quality. There must be some more, of course, but this is a very, very, desirable example. PK

If Polish, it's probably a copy of a copy because Sean Barry's copies looked better than this, unless some Polish wideboy has spun it around in a spindryer with a load of scrap iron to "age" it. PK

It's actually SBW, which stands for Sean Barry Weske, who produced cast copies of Third Reich badges and medals - and other things - in vast numbers in the 1970s and 1980s. They were considered very good for what they were and never pretended to be other than copies, although some flea market traders certainly gulled people with them. PK

I'd like to add my support for such a forum. PK

Dbe post

Just for the interest of readers, these images show the 1939 "Republican" issue Croix de Guerre and the Vichy Government replacement with the dates commemorating what they saw as the War of the 1939-1940. In this case, the recipient has put the Republican ribbon back, presumably after the Lib?ration. As an interesting sidenote, a lot of the 1939-1940 awards by the pre-armistice high command were subsequently cancelled because it was felt that the award criteria had been too relaxed in many cases. So any "Vichy" 1939-1940 cross bearing a Republican ribbon is likely to have belonged to a veteran whose original award was considered valid by the examining authority after the Liberation. These two WW2 crosses also show the distinctive difference in appearance of the Republican and Vichy issues, the latter recalling the WW1 cross and its artificial "chocolate bronze" patina. The three basic types of Vichy Croix de Guerre: the 1939-1940 cross bearing the rare first type ribbon as seen on Hendrik's example, the extremely rare official Vichy Croix de Guerre which dispensed with the Marianne motif, replacing it with the Francisque and the 1939-1940 cross with the more commonly encountered second type green and black ribbon. Only members of the 1er R?giment de France and Mar?chal P?tain's personal bodyguard detachment, the Groupe de Protection, were eligible for the Etat Fran?ais Croix de Guerre and less than a hundred are estimated to have been awarded. Several holders are still alive, two of whom won theirs in combat against Resistance and Anglo-American Special Forces units. Regarding Croix de Guerre with other dates, these are described by many as unofficial. The crosses produced in French colonies by local commanders like Giraud could be described as unoffical but it is rather a moot point as the Vichy Government was, after all, the sole legitimate French authority from June 1940 to late 1944, when the remaining Vichy forces were defeated. It should be remembered that Colonel Charles de Gaulle, who promoted himself to the rank of General, was considered a renegade under sentence of death for desertion in the face of the enemy in 1940 and that the Anglo-Americans were very wary of him throughout the war. In other words, the French Republic, as such, had ceased to exist and the "Republican" Croix de Guerre bearing the 1939 date medallion awarded to France Libre personnel by the Gaullist "government-in-exile" during the war were just as unofficial as crosses awarded by Loyalist Vichy administrations in French colonies and territories. In fact, the only official Croix de Guerre awarded or distributed during the German occupation can be seen in the above photograph. Of those, just one was an actual award for military personnel serving in the legitimate French forces (Vichy-controlled) whereas the other was an exchange piece not unlike the denazified WW2 awards produced for veterans by the West German government from 1957 onwards. PK

Well-spotted! I have never seen anything like that before. But the cross itself looks alright, the rather soft images notwithstanding. A period repair, perhaps? PK

The stars look okay. The palms are upside-down. It could be possible if the recipient stayed in the French Army. The later Vichy Croix de Guerre cannot be so easily dismissed as unofficial issues because the P?tain administration was the legitimate power in France. The 1939-1940 crosses with the black and green ribbons were exchange awards for anyone who held a 1939 Republican cross and wished to continue wearing it. I have a framed example, with this type of central medallion, said to be of North African manufacture, with its June 1940 citation and a Republican ribbon of British (London) manufacture, showing that the recipient exchanged his 1939 cross but then obtained a new ribbon after the Liberation when framing his award. The crosses with other dates were produced for French soldiers serving in what remained of the French Army after the armistice and, of course, the "new" French Army, which included units like the 1er R?giment de France. Vichy also produced its own CdG in the shape of a cross bearing the Francisque with the legend Etat Fran?ais and the date '1944'. It's not strictly on topic but it is an interesting subject. I agree that it would have been quite a tall order for a man to win two bronze palms and two stars in the course of the 1939-1940 war but not completely impossible. An airman could have done it. However, those palms are upside-down, which is worrying. PK

Now that is great news!

Classic 1960s/70s fake with the droop-tail eagles. PK

My piece and the HuDMK pendant from the www.stephan.de website, advertised for ?10.00 as a copy or newly-made item. It's a pity that the ?10.00 item isn't clearer for comparison purposes. But thanks for posting the links, Hardy. I'll check out the militaria-fund site later as it seems to be off-line at the moment. PK

I tend to agree that it may not be a 1943-1945 piece because precious metals were a restricted resource by that stage. Someone asked privately how a commemorative pendant from the postwar period could have a swastika in its design. Infanterie-Regiment 134 was raised in Vienna and, as Rudolf Souval's output proves, the Austrians did not impose the same restrictions on Nazi symbols as the West Germans in the 1950s and 1960s. So, would this be an Austrian commemorative or "widow" pendant from the 1950s or 1960s, commissioned by a regimental association? PK

PK

It did indeed. It came out around the same time as the "Arnheim" Shield and some other items. Here's a Hoch-und-Deutschmeister Tradition Badge widely accepted as being a genuine wartime piece. PK [Can't attach images so I will have to host it somewhere]