bob lembke

Dave;

Why don't you post whatever citation information you have, like who published it, any dates, etc. I have several good shots at finding them, if possible. You well may have some of my tools, but certainly not all.

I myself poke about in the catalogs of major European libraries a lot, especiallty the Deutsches Buecherei Leipzig, to best German library for pre-1945 material. I had a very good working relationship with the director of research there, but she recently retired, I think, but I have contact with her successor. She warned me that not all of their older material is cataloged on-line, but they have a special paper catalog for WW I material.

My "ace in the hole" is my spousal unit, who is the principal foreign language aquisitions librarian for one of the major US libraries. She has resources that are not available to ordinary mortals, I believe, not one but possibly at least two "world catalogs", and another catalog that covers the libraries of Germany, Switzerland, and half of Austria. These I believe are pay to use tools sold to libraries. She can work effectively in dozens of languages, so she is "Ace, Book Detective" extraordinaire.

If the sample you posted is what this publication would have on my grand-father, it would not actually add more info, although it would be nice to have confirmation of his receiving these awards. I have found confirmation in a 1500 page most obscure book on Feuerwerk=Offiziere that one of our most illustrious Pals posseses in Europe, that lists which of those officers got the EK I. The book also contains an article that grand-father wrote about his most significant exploit in the war.

Bob Lembke

Now THAT is THE book to find! Makes you wonder about Band 2 and 3...?

My question also. But I suspect that the publication of this petered out as the war ground on, certainly as the EK II is concerned.

Is this the NYC city library perchance?

I wrote a longer version of my above post, and I went on a bit about the NYPL. But my post flew off to some cyber black hole. The New York Public Library is one of the great libraries of the world. And, as the name implies, it is basically a private library, at least originally, and in part today. (Sort of like Brit "public schools".) It was formed in 1911, I believe, by the likes of Andrew Carnegie, the Vanderbilts, and the Astors. It was a library for the public, not a public institution. I have not been in the door in 40 years, as I live elsewhere, but every year (when I remember) I send them a check to support this wonderful institution.

It now has actual public, lending branches and divisions, but the core research library is private and does not lend books. When I worked on the Mexican War (1845-48) ages ago, when you used some of the rarer material you were locked in a wire cage with the book in question.

Ta,

Ulster

Bob Lembke

By the way, I made a copy today of Die Ritter des Eisernen Kreuzes in alphabetischer Reihenfolge, Band 1, published some time in 1915, which has all EK1s and EK2s up to that date. Unfortunately, they only had Band 1, so it has all the EK1s but only EK2s through the letter K.

Remarkable. Never heard of such a publication. You are brave indeed to mention that you have such a publication.

Possibly you could do me a great favor. Family oral history (amazingly, proven remarkably reliable) and some additional evidence indicates that my grand-father, Feuerwerk=Hauptmann Heinrich Fuchs, who was the Id of the Generalkommando of III. Reservekorps, was awarded the EK II and the EK I within about two months of his arrival in Belgium, upon the capture of Antwerp. The corps commander, General von Beseler, was awarded the OPLM at that time.

Could you kindly look him up in the volume that you foolishly mentioned, and give me any particulars that might be mentioned, such as the date of these awards? Better yet, could you possibly scan the page(s) that mention these supposed awards? (I can PM you my e-mail address.) I hope to (and have started) to write up his remarkable life.

As for my father, he was a very naughty Flamm=Pionier, and therefore he only got his EK II in 1921 from the Ministry of War (I have the medal and, more importantly, his award document), although he saw considerable action, mostly at Verdun in 1916 and Reims in 1918. (He spent about 18 months in various hospitals and in depot, due to his worst wound, at Verdun in December 1916.) He also never even was promoted to Gefreiter, although he led a Flamm=Trupp. His greatest misdeed was to shoot and kill his company CO, who was a drunk, a thief, and a serious coward. He and his fellow shooters actually got away with it, in a complicated manner. (The whole company command structure was corrupt, and he hated it.) He also was able to shoot a sergeant in the butt, and get away with it, and kick another in the face from above with the sole of his boot, the hob-nails seriously modifying it, and getting the sergeant put up on discipline for having been kicked. He also was a sort of Milo Milobinder-type company entreprenuer, had a big mouth, was educated, spoke six languages, and his father was a staff officer. (His one visit to his son was a publicity disaster for the latter; the whole company had to be called out in formation, etc., and he suffered retaliation.) So, although being wounded four times in combat, the only decoration he got during the war was a black wound badge.

So we need not look for him. No Ritter he.

Many thanks.

Bob Lembke

Dave;

Are the Ranglisten you just cited from the collection of the New York Public Library? It is a magnificent institution, although I have not used it in a long time, since I have spent little time in NYC since I went off to university, several centuries ago.

I know that the NYPL has a good collection of Ranglisten, and I gather that they are held in New Jersey in storage, and you must order them ahead of time in order to have them on hand when you visit. Do you have any practical advice as to this process, so one does not waste a visit to New York? (Although a day in the NYPL could hardly really be a waste.)

Or does some other institution hold that breath-taking collection?

Bob Lembke

Glenn;

Just looked at my translations of the family letters from that period, as I pasted your information into my family history time-line, and your opinion is consistant with the language my g-f used. He repeatedly told his son that he would learn useful things in the pioneers, and nothing useful in the infantry. But once in the pioneers he volunteered for the volunteer pioneer company at Gallipoli, and when back joined the flame regiment, which I think that my g-f did not think too much of. Pop tried to convince him that it was relatively safe, which, counter-intuitively, it actually was; but nevertheless in about 6 months at the front, usually not in the line, he was wounded four times. The two worst times he was not exactly candid about the seriousness of his wounds, one of which kept him from the front for over 18 months (it spit bone fragments for over 10 years), the other a blinding by a German gas shell in no-man's-land; later got his sight back.

Bob Lembke

Glenn;

Perhaps you can give me some guidance on induction possibilities open to my father.

When my grand-father went off to Belgium with the Generalkommando III. Reservekorps he told my father, then in a school for construction engineering and management (he wanted to become a Festungs=Offizier), that he would "break his neck" if he ran out and volunteered for the army. He, being quite smart, knew that the war would be a terrible one, and told Pop that there would be enough war for everyone. Their correspondence over the next 10 months was in large part on how to enter the army in an advantagious fashion, in particular to keep my father out of the infantry and the crazy charges that g-f saw in Belgium. He wanted father to enter the Pioniere and join the pioneer battalion of III. RK in Russia; g-f wrote from Russia that, of the pioneer battalion: "I know all the officers, and have trained most of them." (Training in explosives, I am sure, g-f was a Feuerwerk=Offizier. Although he was the "Id", he wrote about doing the occasional especially large blasting job; once 1200 kg of explosives close to the front, which made him nervous about Russian artillery fire.) A lot of the correspondence was about what Bizerk=Offiziere to write, telling Pop to keep his sharp tounge under control, etc.

Finally in mid-1915 Pop was sworn into Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 3 "von Rauch", the pioneer battalion of III. AK, but g-f had to leave the front due to malaria, and Pop volunteered to go off to Gallipoli, where he also caught malaria.

How could Pop engineer going in to the Pioniere, and not get drafted into the army and probably into the infantry? G-f wrote about Pop joining the Pioniere before he was drafted. He went in when he was 18 1/2 years old. He had a good pre-university education, spoke six languages (of course including years of study of the supremely useful Latin and Classical Greek), was a journeyman bricklayer (did apprenticeship during vacations) to get into the school of construction technology, and had partially finished that course of study, so he was attractive to the Pioniere, I think.

Could he just volunteer and join the unit of his choice? Could g-f pull strings with the brass of "von Rauch"?

Thanks again for your previous help figuring out things about my family, especially g-f.

Bob Lembke

Dave;

The Rangliste scan for 1823 is quite interesting. Note that there are two second lieutenants named Pohl, and they are merely distinguished as "1st" and "2nd". 90 years later they at least would give their first names, in parenthesis, after their last name. As I mentioned, in my family village in rural Prussia, the mailmen, probably ex-NCOs, even after WW I, knew and referred to one of my ancestors as "Fuchs III".

Bob Lembke

Thanks, Glenn!

Bob L.

Hi, Gilles;

Good to hear from you again! I would think that the situation in late 1916 was close to that of early 1918, the major reorganizations were mostly over.

You mentioned: "2nd Res Cpy of Pio Btl 3"; my father was sworn into the army by Pionier=Bataliion Nr. 3 "von Rauch" in 1915. My grand-father wanted him to train there, and then get sent to the pioneer battalion of the III. Reservekorps (5. RD u. 6. RD), so he could keep an eye on him and they could serve together in Russia, he was the Id in the Generalkommando of the army corps. As he wrote in a letter to his son about the pioneer battalion of the army corps: "I know all of the officers, and have trained most of them." But the army corps was seemingly disbanded, and grand-father had to leave the front due to malaria caught in Russia. So my father went off to Gallipoli as a volunteer Pionier.

You wrote: "Source "Mein Regiment" " Haven't heard of this source. I could look it up in the catalog of Buecherei Leipzig, but would you want to comment on it?

Bob Lembke

Mossop;

Sorry, I didn't realize that with Mueller we actually were back in the Napoleonic Wars; I thought that your question about if there were Ranglisten from that era was a stray question. I don't know beans about the period, or even the Prussian Army, but I do recall occasionally seeing Ranglisten from the period, on ZVAB or German e-Bay.

Bob Lembke

Its Second Lieutenant Nicolas Muller of 5.Kurm?rkischen Landwehr Infantry Regiment. I've been trying to do a little research (over time) into his Regiments involments at Rhemis,Ligny, Belle Alliance. but presumed I'd not be able to research him.

I assume that you mean Mueller (Umlaut), not Muller or Mueller. There are perhaps 200 of the first, none of the second, and 11 of the third in the 1914 Prussian Rangliste. So a big problem is the common nature od Mueller (Umlaut).

The pre-war Ranglisten carried Reserve and Landwehr officers, the former associated as a reserve officer of his unit, the latter as part of a pool of Landwehr officers listed by the Bizerk (Military District) that he reported to. So with Reserve officers you can usually poke about and find when he did his active duty if you have an assortment of Ranglisten. But the number of men with that name is a killer. Landwehr regiments are not listed. Do you know if he was a Leutnant, Leutnant der Reserve, oder ein Leutnant der Landwehr ? If the guy was minted as a reserve officer during the war you have a big problem, unless he was mentioned in a unit history, or got killed and then filed in a known grave. The 1926 Ehrenrangliste 1914-1918 does not carry reserve officers; if it did it would be as big as the Cairo white pages (telephone book).

Bob Lembke

How long does the Ranglisten go back, can you for example look for details of an Officer in the Napoleonic Wars?

Regards

Mossop

Yes, I see Prussian Ranglisten from the 1815 period; of course they are shorter, 60 pages I think, the later ones were about 1500 pages; there also was a shorter edition every year, only about 700 pages, without an index of officer's names, which make them much less useful for research. beware of this when buying one, say, on e-Bay. The later Prussian Ranglisten also covers Wuerttemburg, the XIII Armeekorps. I have about 15, some people have much larger collections. Then there also are the books covering Bavaria, Saxony, etc.

But these books do not give a lot of detail; last name, position in the regiment, often some information on seniority, and sometimes the decorations that they have received. Since the books are organized by units and military organizations, staffs, etc., there also is a lot of info on what the Prussian Army really was. Finally there is a multi 100 page index of officer's names.

Bob Lembke

Great Picture Rick, thank you for sharing. As I can see "1YV" was some kind of nobility... what about the poor-young man? Was there anything like "2-3 year volunteer"?

Marcin;

Interesting question. The Prussian/German Army had a number of mechanisms for promoting the especially able men of all economic and social classes into careers as officers and NCOs, some of these being rather specific to an economic class. In this way they were able to preserve some privileges of the nobility and/or wealthy, while still being able to allow able men from the poorer classes to reach responsible positions. This was facilitated by the German dual command system, where a unit was commanded by a nobleman, but the chief of staff, who really was at least as important, might be a much younger man often of modest social background but with a General Staff education. I have heard of a division with a CO who was a Generalleutnant and a chief of staff who was a Hauptmann.

My paternal grand-father rose from a background as a peasant farmer to a military and social/economic position as a staff officer, gentleman farmer, and manager of the Berlin stockyards largely by using the mechanism of the Feuerwerker u. Feuerwerk=Offizier, where an able NCO would get two years of technical training and become a technical NCO and then a technical officer. In his case this military promotion was paralleled by social/economic advancement, in his case bolstered by a successful civil lawsuit against his wife, who had poisoned him with Deadly Nightshade when she discovered his second, "love family". (One often finds interesting things when researching one's family!)

I feel that these mechanisms were much more effective and successful than the limited mechanisms for this in, say, the British Army, to the detriment of the quality of leadership of the latter. (Arise and to the barricades, you Anglophiles!) These mechanisms actually made an army which was a lot more flexible socially than it appeared to be, while preserving privileges of the elites.

Bob Lembke

Leah;

Thank you very much. Now I can look for the regimental histories, if they exist. It was a very interesting battle, with a lot of new tactics and equipment. For example, as the attackers entered the Russian positions they were tactically directed by air observers in two-way contact with the commander of the attack, dropping tactical instructions from the air to the attacking formations. (A big problem in such attacks was getting lost in the enemy trench system.)

I have collected a lot of research material (for example, with duplicates, about 110 Reichsarchiv official histories), but this sort of look-up is still hard for me. Can I ask you what you used? Possibly the US book The 251 German Divisions in the World War?

Thanks for your help. My ancestors traditionally served in the 5th ID (mostly in the 3rd Ulan Regiment) and then of course did their reserve service in units that would be mobilized as the 5. RID in war-time. In a letter from Belgium, my grand-father referred to 5. RID as "my division".

Bob Lembke

I have a vague memory of an officer serving in Africa who eventually served in four armies. In fact, I think that it was the grand-father of a woman I dated centuries ago. I think he was Swiss by nationality, and then served in Africa, possibly against Lettow von Vorbeck. (Did I get that right?) That was quite an epic. There is an interesting photo about of a black soldier, a German Askari who was personally associated with Lettow von Vorbeck, and who went with him to Germany after WW I and served with von Vorbeck in the latter's Freikorps, I think as von Vorbeck's driver. There is another epic.

Bob Lembke

I have seen a photo of a large outdoor depot where the Germans had many dozens of captured tanks awaiting refurbishing or cannibalization for parts. The refurbishment might have been assisted by the fact that British tanks had Daimler engines made in the UK. The Germans planned to add some 200 tanks to their army in 1919, and as their industry was terribly overstretched the use of the easily captured tanks was a lot more sensible than making their own. The German A7V looks terribly clumsy but I believe it performed much like the Brit tanks. However, it was designed to carry a Trupp of ten storm troopers as well as the fighting crew, to be off-loaded behind the enemy front line, hence the boxy design and astonishing "crew" of 18. Hence it was a combination tank/APC. Only 20 were made, 15 formed into three Panzer=Abteilungen.

A Bavarian vehicle maintenence unit had a refurbishment assembly line for fixing up Mark IVs set up in a remarkably large shed-like facility, a photo of which I have seen.

Bob Lembke

I am not an expert in uniforms, and hardly one in matters of the complex German military bureaucratic system, but the Einjahrigfreiwilliger (did I spell it correctly?) term was not a rank, but was a term for a career path. There actually were two or three variants on this career path, in the course of which the officer aspirant may have held several ranks and displayed a succession of uniform details.

Uniform-wise, the hall-mark of soldiers of this class is the "candy-striping" piping bordering the shoulder straps, very visable in your photos. I believe that men with this status had to pay for their arms, equipment, etc., and probably were not paid, but relied on private funds.

Bob Lembke

The name "Carstensen" is, of course, Danish and not German. I myself am a quarter Danish, from intermarraige. In the confused border area between Denmark and Germany, the same area where your officer came from, the border moved several times.

Bob Lembke

Mossop;

Actually the SA researcher I mentioned was yours. I was quoting your earlier post.

The most common resources for looking up pre-war German officers, like the Ranglisten and Dienstalterslisten, do not have first names, unless two officers with the same last name served in the same regiment at the same time. I may be unfairly passing the ball to Glenn, but he has extraordinary resources. Amazingly, he actually found valuable information on my grand-father, while he was serving as a NCO in the Prussian Artillery in the 1880's. Information on enlisted men is simply generally not available, unless they were as unfortunate as to die in the Great War, but fortunate enough to find a known grave, a less than 50% probability.

Additionally, as many know, a RAF fire-bombing raid on Potsdam in WW II destroyed most of the Prussian archives.

There supposedly is an interesting book by a fellow who was a German officer, and later was a British officer; the book supposedly compares the two armies. When I had the citation I unfortunately did not obtain it, and do not now have the exact citation. The Guardian recently reported at length about a notorious "interrogation" center in central London that operated during WW II and the early Cold War period, and the CO had been a German officer at one time, and a British officer in WW II. On the other hand, the Luftwaffe officer that was in charge of the defenses during the famous US air attack on the Polesti oil fields was named "Douglas Pitcairn of Perthshire"; must be a story there. I know beans about WW II.

Bob Lembke

Sorry. SKROBOVA, a village in Russia.

Bob L.

Gentlemen;

The largest FW attack ever occurred at this place and time. besides three companies of FW troops, wielding, I believe, 154 FW, I think that the attacking units were the 5th Reserve Infantry Division and IR 401. I assume by that time the 5th RID (in which a number of my forebearers served in) was a triangular division. I want to research this battle further. Does anyone know what three regiments were in 5 RID at this time? My sources have no info on IR 401, which must have been a new regiment, by its number. Any leads to this research problem? I probably can successfully look for the histories in the on-line catalogs of German libraries, especially Leipzig.

Any leads gratefully received. My materials are not oriented toward this sort of inquiry.

Bob Lembke

mossop;

You asked Glenn: "Was the initials or first names the same? - I've got a researcher in South Africa checking the South Africa Records so I will pass on this information."

One difficulty in researching German soldiers is that most sources do not list first names or initials 99% of the time. I think that Glenn is working with Ranglisten, and they never give first names unless there were two officers with the same last name in the same regiment. OR, at least, were often referred to as Schultz I, Schultz II, etc.

Family oral history tells that the postmen (ex-Prussian Army) referred to one of my ancestors, for postal matters, in our village, as "Fuchs III". In civilian life!

However, Glenn has miraculous sources, so one never knows.

Bob Lembke

Mike;

Possibly you could approach the guy who bought the Militaer=Pass and ask for a copy to learn a lot more about the flyer, perhaps swapping something for them, like really nice color photos of your items. Some collectors of Paesse are generous like that, some very possessive or even secretive. Some people collect items, some collect information; I largely fall in the later category. I might be able to help you decypher the Pass.

Bob Lembke

The design "looks Imperial", but I suspect that there are a lot of such flags being run up at the present time. I have seen many of these on e-Bay, etc., even without looking for them, selling for almost nothing. I would be wary of someone buying one for 5-10 Euros and putting it on the drive-way or, in a public urinal (a favorite aging technique of "antique" counterfeiters) for a month, or giving it to your dog or your two-year old child to play with for a while, and then putting it on e-Bay after it ages 90 years in a month.

Bob Lembke

Charles;

My father was sent to train in captured British tanks, and after a week during which he thought he was to be in a tank crew he and the others were told that they were going to fight tanks, not fight in tanks, and the purpose of the week was to show them what an awful gun platform a moving tank was. He was a Pionier. However, Sepp Dietrich of WW II fame was a tanker, and he was from the Bavarian artillery. And the Panzer=Abteilungen were sent, after formation, to Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) for finishing their training, and the formal name of the units included the word Sturm. Storm units themselves were infantry, Pionier und Jaeger.

To me, all of the above tells me that the men of the German tank units came from a variety of military backgrounds. I guess that you know that 2/3s of the German tanks in organized units were Beute=Panzer, captured British Mark IVs.

Bob Lembke