Freiwillige

Wow, many thanks, Paul!

Dear gentlemen, I got this very old CDV with a huge lot of Romanian photos and assume here we have an Ottoman nobleman. Whether I'm right or not, I don't know. There's absolutely no clue as CDV has no photo atelier mark, its reverse is blank. Judging from the type of paper I date it to late 1880s.

Your valuable comments are highly appreciated.

Outstanding piece of history! My congratulations, Andreas!

Thanks again! Sure, it was my mistake puting Austro-Hungarian and Russian order in incorrect precedence) Unfortunately medals cannnot be identified due to the quality of a CDV but anyway they are some foreign decorations. Complete list of General's award could help but I don't have it...

Many thanks for such a fast reply!

Fragment with decorations, all but one being foreign awards.

Could you please help me to identify the rest of orders and medals?

Medal bar:

1. Semnul Onorific al Ofițerilor (18 or 25 years, impossible to tell).

2. Orden der Eisernen Krone, 3rd class (Austro-Hungaria).
3. Order of Saint Vladimir, 4th class.

4.

5.

Neck order has a shape of St.Stanislaus Order but crossed swords below the crown make me think it's not the one.

As for breast stars, I have no idea but assume one of them belongs to the neck order.

Dear gentlemen, here's a beautiful 1880s original CDV that found its place in my photo collection.

It's a portrait of a General Ioan Emanoil Florescu (07.08.1819 - 10.05.1893) who served as a War minister (1871-1876) and a Romanian Prime minister twice: from April 17 till May 06, 1876 as well as from March 02 till December 29, 1891. Florescu was promoted to the rank of General de Divizie on April 08, 1873. He also had a rank of a Russian colonel.

Dear Leo and Rogi, thanks for following the thread!

I still doubt it could be one of those Serbian Queen orders as their design seems to be quite different from that worn by the unknown Lady from the portrait in question.

Thanks for your replies, gentlemen!

I still can't find an image of that mysterious decoration though I spent hours googling...

Here's an article on an Edelweiss badge of the Alpine Corps that I wrote recently for my website: http://www.antique-photos.com/en/unidatabase/german-empire/173-edelweiss-abzeichen.html

Not an eyeopener, but it contains all the info I gathered in a condensed form.

Here's my humble contribution to this interesting discussion.

Thanks for your comment, Glenn!

Good morning, gentlemen!

Here's another of one the recent additions to my photo collection.

Any chances to identify this veteran judging from his awards?

Thanks a lot, Christophe!

Thanks, Igor! Could youplease let me know which one exactly?

Many thanks for your response, Robin!

As for an order, it should be an Austro-Hungarian one, am I right? Any ideas which order was it?

And finally a fragment of his steel helmet with a Freikorps insignia.

Interesting medal bar with a rarely seen Upper Silesia Comemmorative Medal.

Fragment with pinback awards and badges.

1. Iron Cross, 1st Class;

2. Army Wound Badge in Silver;

3. Frontline Cross of the German Union of Frontline Soldiers;

3. Prince Alfons Commemorative Badge

Here's a beautiful portrait of a Freikorps Oberland/Sturmbataillon Teja fighter from my collection

Having posted this thread it came to my mind that there might be opportunity these photos are not of Freischützenkorps but of Sicherheitspolizei of Weimar Republic from the early period, i.e. 1919-1923 before it reformation into Schutzpolizei. I consulted a book by Ingo Löhken's "Die Polizei-Uniformem in Preußen 1866-1945" and found out that "Lower ranks [of SiPo] had Arabic numerals made of white metal on their collar patches that differed in size: large standing for Abteilungen and small for Gruppen" (p.25).

On the other hand, dark green collar patch with numerals of the same type (large "1" and small "3", both of red colour) can be found in "Abzeichen von Freiwilligen-Verbänden" published by Verlag Moritz Ruhl and it clearly states "Freischützenkorps" (reprint edition, p.9).

Your comments, gentlemen?

Portrait No.3

Portrait No.2

Here are several portraits of Freischützenkorps members from my personal collection.

Portrait No.1

Good evening, gentlemen!

I'm vainly trying to find any information on insignia of Berliner Freischützenkorps.

Here's what I managed to acquire from various sources:

Freikorps personnel wore light green collars with numerals that varied in height. Freikorps consisted of three groups that differed in colour of above mentioned numerals, i.e.

1.Gruppe: white numerals,
2.Gruppe: red numerals,
3.Gruppe: yellow numerals.

Cloth oval arm patch with Berlin coat-of-arms was another distinctive insignia of Freischützenkorps.

After disbandment of Freikorps its personnel joined neue Polizeitruppe von Berlin.