PKeating

It's not really a Victoria Cross, is it? It's about as legitimate as the Victory Cross Idi Amin Dada commissioned and awarded himself. Mind you, I think Amin's "VC" was at least made in England. I wonder if it occurred to them that the kind of French Canadian who would worry about the legend "For Valour" in English on a VC awarded by the Canadian government would be unlikely to serve in the Canadian armed forces to begin with. He would see them as the direct descendants of the British and New English forces that destroyed New France in the 1750s, as an army of occupation. Maybe the Qu?becois government should resurrect the Military Order of Saint-Louis. That would surely keep everyone happy. PK

How could I miss it, John? I may not know much about a lot of things but I do know a lot about some things! LOL! PK

I regret to tell you that this is a fake. I do not know how much you paid for it or where you bought it but it is a fairly well known fake that first appeared around five years ago. It is well-made but looks nothing like an original in a side-by-side comparison. Better fakes have since been produced but these ones still surface on internet auction sites from time to time. They also circulate between collectors who either believe them to be original or refuse to accept that they are modern fakes. The copies of the Fallschirmsch?tzenabzeichen (Heer) produced in the 1960s and 1970s varied from extremely crude to quite convincing...if a buyer had never seen and examined a real badge. Some of these better 1960s and 1970s fakes comprised a cast aluminium wreath with the diving eagle as fitted to the denazified 1957-issue FSA. Most of them have fake C E Juncker stamps of a type not even seen before the war. Some are unmarked. Quite a few wellknown dealers sold them as originals before Eric Queen and I published an article about the Army Paratrooper Badge. Better fakes have been produced in aluminium and in silver in recent years, many being sold on internet auction sites like eBay and ePier, and by some dealers. However, the fakers never get it quite right. There have also been attempts to introduce "variants" into the market, like the zinc badges with the Gnad maker's mark. The .800 silver Army Paratrooper Badges are extremely rare and the last two to change hands sold for more than $20,000.00 US or its equivalent. Eric Queen was recently asking $22,000.00 for a Type 1/2 "transitional" badge in .800 silver. Prior to this, a couple changed hands for around $10K - $12K each and a rather abused example was sold for less than that in the UK. However, experience suggests that people are paying anything from $2K to $5K for these fakes, believing that they have found the bargain of a lifetime. You should demand a refund of your money from the vendor. Paddy Keating

If you have an original print, the detail is usually extremely clear. So you can scan it at, say, 600 dpi or more, blow up the area around a man's sidehat or fieldcap and see if the RFC badge is discernable. PK

Just for interest's sake, the Spie? who signed the chit, August Pichler, is the guy between the two Luftwaffe parachute jump instructors wearing the RZ16 parachute with the Irvin-style quick-release buckle. The SS-Fallschirmj?ger around them wear RZ20 parachutes. A couple of veterans' accounts refer to the ancient aeroplanes. This early Heinkel He111 attests to the shortage of Ju52s for training purposes. They did jump from Ju52s when they could get them but otherwise, planes like this, and a few Italian Savoia-Marchetti tri-motors piloted by loyalist Italian crews, were all they had to work with. Some training jumps were carried out from Fiesler Storch light aircraft, with the jumpers riding on the undercarriage. This snapshot was taken sometime during the period in which the chit was filled out. PK

Good responses on the FSS. I also noticed a distinct difference between the forward slashes at the top of the known, original documents, on the line for the issue number, and that on the Linde FSS. The Linde FSS also appears to have strange fading patterns. Compare it to Hummel's very worn and faded example: with Hummel's document, you can see a uniformity of colour through the cloth material, desite the wear. Maybe the strange appearance of the Linde document is due to a trick of the light or the scanner but it is off-putting. I do find the use of the Roman 'S' for "SS" a bit odd on a document issued through the SS-F?hrungs-Hauptamt. That is one office building where every clerk's typewriter would have had a sigrunen key! The Brigadef?hrer's signature is fairly convincing but the "Berlin" on the Ort (District) line looks very strange indeed, as if someone were trying to ape German handwriting and consequently writing too slowly and carefully, with disappointing results. Maybe the Linde FSS is genuine but as I said, I would need to examine it physically before making up my mind. Maybe I'm just paranoid. The point is that, as with other stuff, one has to be so careful these days. One of the worst cases I have on file is that of an original parachute requsition chit filled out by the Spie? of 4./SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 500 for a training jump. It was sold on an auction site and I got there too late. It resurfaced sometime later...with a totally false officer's countersignature and stamp on the bottom righthand corner, added by the total c**t who had purchased it on eBay and then offered on the same site again before offering it to me privately for a large sum of money. He also added a fake unit stamp over the genuine signature of the Spie?, Pichler, who is still alive and who headed the veterans' association for many years after the war. The 'improved' document is the one on the top while the rather blurry image I captured from the original auction sale is the unaltered document. The only captains in the unit at the time were the CO, the legal officer and one of the doctors. The company commanders were all lieutenants. In any case, the name bears no resemblance whatsoever to that of any officer with SS-FJ-Btl 500 at any time. Of course, neither our erstwhile forger nor the vast majority of people have access to this information and I am, frankly, in two minds about including it in my book. While it would serve as an aid to potential collectors of such documents, it would without any doubt also help the forgers. While fakery and forgery is heinous, this is actually far worse. This is vandalism of a wonderful, rare, original document, which is now totally devalued as a result of this bonehead's greed and desperation to make a few extra bucks. I think I would probably break the guy's fingers one by one if I ever got a chance. PK

The unit was issued with standard Luftwaffe-issue parachutists' kit. Most of the members of SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 500 received single-decal M38s and splinter pattern jump smocks with the Luftwaffe breast eagle. Some men removed the breast eagles and LW eagle decals. I have a photo of a machinegunner in the Memelland in the autumn of 1944 with a Waffen-SS sleeve eagle on the sleeve of his smock and have seen a studio portrait of another but this was strictly an unofficial practice. There is also a photo showing an SS para on the Mataruska Banja airfield wearing a double-decal M38 but this was probably drawn from Parachute Training School stores. Some early plain green smocks were issued as well, as photos from Drvar show. There is also a photo of the kompaniechef of 3./SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 600 on the Oder Front in February 1945 wearing an early green smock with the special Waffen-SS rank patch on his sleeve, which was evidently a personal affectation. Towards the end, SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 600 men also got the late war M38 helmets with no decals. Other items of Luftwaffe FJ kit worn by SS paratroopers included FJ-issue trousers and 2nd pattern boots. Luftwaffe FJ-issue field kit included bandoliers, grenade bags, gravity knives, gasmask bags and so on. Oddly enough, the SS-Fallschirmj?ger never used helmet covers. Nor did they camouflage their helmets with paint and sawdust and things. They did use the FJ-issue helmet nets. The attached photograph, taken by Adolf Kunzmann in the cemetery on 26.5.1944 after the relief of SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 500 at Drvar, is a very informative study of how the men of the 500 looked. The NCO with the MP40 and the spare MG barrel case probably doesn't have a gasmask in the gasmask bag. One period caption stated that it contained a medical kit. It probably contained extra cigarettes and food... PK

Bravo to the three GIs but I am certainly looking forward to the day when US officials speak good English again. Maybe it's Stalin Syndrome. Maybe he thinks he'll be purged if he sounds more intelligent that his boss. PK

I can only endorse what Darrell just wrote. If I were you, Robert, I would disenage from that group of individuals and lose their contact details. Rodgers once threatened to commit suicide when someone insisted upon a refund. I kid you not. That way be demons... PK

"His comment is that he got them all from a very well-known collector, and 'that should be good enough for us.'" And that attitude in response to reasonable questions should be enough to ring loud warning bells, if his attitude to providing good photos was not already enough. Can you imagine trying to get a refund from this individual should it turn out to be necessary? How much does he want for this cased Spange and from whose collection did it allegedly come? The asking price is sometimes quite revealing. Press him on the claimed provenance as well. As for the Spange, it's not a type I would be inclined to consider. PK

I should add that I was unable to give a definitive opinion based on the scan of the Linde FSS. There are a number of things about it that concern me but nothing that couldn't perhaps be explained away should the FSS turn out to be perfectly genuine. Put it this way: I would need to be able to examine it before opening my chequebook. Anyway, let's see what you can spot. PK

You will notice that the Scheu and Hummel FSS are identical in terms of the printer and batch. The SS-F?hrungs-Hauptamt ordered these documents in from Luftwaffe stocks. The Linde FSS bears the same printer's details and stock number. Linde was also just three numbers away from Scheu, meaning that he was on the same parachute jump course. Now, here are the Scheu and Linde FSS side-by-side. Let's see what readers have to say about them. PK

Here is Walter Hummel's wellworn FSS, carried for over a year in his pocket with his soldbuch. Note how it has worn. These documents were made of a tightly woven cloth, like the tarnausweis, which was dyed the appropriate colour, printed and then given some form of semi-matt waxlike protective treatment to waterproof it. Sharp-eyed Waffen-SS students will note his SS-VT '1' collar patch, still worn after the award of the Winterwar Medal. Many SS-Verf?gungstruppe veterans wore old insignia like this to denote their status. I have a photo from the cemetery in Drvar on 26.5.1944 showing one of these collar patches worn by an Oberscharf?hrer. PK

Here is a known original, issued to Walter Scheu. Readers will note that the number corresponds to the entry at the foot of the first page of Scheu's soldbuch. This licence is obviously in much better condition than the one bearing Linde's name. PK

Indeed, Nick. Here's a scan of a Fallschirmsch?tzenschein (Parachutist Licence) someone sent me a while ago. The last Waffen-SS example to change hands commanded over $5,000.00 several years ago. There are only a handful known to survive. Put another way, I know of just four, two of which I have. Anyway, here's what arrived in my electronic mailbox. PK

Just to add to Rick's post, Himmler fainted when he witnessed an Einsatzgruppe mass-execution by machinegun. That said, he displayed courage during the 1923 Putsch, holding aloft the standard - later revered as the Blutfahne - in the face of rifle and pistol fire from the policemen trying to prevent the marchers' progress in front of the Feldherrnhalle. He was also a volunteer during the First World War, although he had not finished his officer training when the armistice came into effect. Himmler would undoubtedly have received the Knight's Cross of the War Service Cross at some point, along with the two lesser classes at the same time. He might also have been given that hideous-looking neck order whose name I can't remember right now, the one with the facsimile Golden Party Badge in the middle of some sort of cross. There is also no reason why he would not have been given a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross too, given his leadership of the Waffen-SS. They would have had to award him the EK2 and EK1 at the same time. And then he would also have been eligible for the DKiS and maybe even the DKiG. PK

I shouldn't think so. There are a couple of former LVF/Charlemagne men living not far from me and I know three former miliciens and one man who served with the Gestapo as a French "interpreter". They don't advertise their pasts, of course. Mind you, France was run for twenty years from 1981 by Fran?ois Mitterand, who reinvented himself as a socialist who had worked as a minor bureaucrat in the Vichy civil service in his youth. The truth is that Mitterand was one of just 137 arch-collaborators who received the Francisque award from P?tain, the highest civil honour Vichy France had to offer. He didn't wear it after 1944. But he and his fellow travellers were quite well-protected after WW2, once they had thrown a few fairly minor footsoldiers to the mob baying for revenge. And Mitterand protected several people himself, including the recently deceased Maurice Papon. PK

Here's an extract from a short piece I wrote on Vichy decorations, which covers this award. PK

Check this thread - click here - out to see what the spange to the Romanian campaign medal looked like. PK

The Senior NCO conducting this paratrooper band somewhere in Brittany in 1944 is wearing a normal fliegerbluse but I figured you'd like this shot all the same, Paul. I just spent a fortnight in Maine, by the way. If you want a decent-sized scan for your files, drop me an e-mail. P

Thank you for this very informative topic, Kevin. Someone posted a Heer Wehrpa? here recently with a battle clasp citation for this medal. Here it is, in case you missed it. To see the topic, click on this link. PK

Reverse. Note that there can be minor differences between the basic crosses themselves. The focal points are the central medallions.

Obverse:

And here are some NCOs from SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 500 in Serbia early in 1944.

Here's a wellknown shot of members of SS-Fallschirmj?ger-Btl 600 parading in Neustrelitz in December 1944.