webr55

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I'd say this can only have belonged to Carl Eduard. Such an amount of carefully, specially made devices like this you only find on a bar that belonged to the head of a (former) ruling house. No. 11 definitely is the 1897 British Victoria Jubilee medal, which he probably chose to wear as he felt a personal attachment to Queen Victoria even during wartime. The only thing that puzzled me first was the lack of his own WW1 Carl Eduard Medal. But as the close-up of his photo in the car above shows, he sometimes chose to not wear this medal, and went just for orders instead of medals. There is also a simple explanation why Bulgarian and Turkish awards came before other German ones: They were wartime awards, which he placed before all other non war-related ones. What an amazing bar, congratulations Claudio!

Congratulations!

Absolutely incredible! If we had this bar in hand, we would believe it was messed with!

I am not convinced this is not a Japanese officer, just judging from the blurred cockade, and if there is period writing to the contrary. See my thread about a future Japanese General (with a similar mustache) who stayed in Berlin for two years:

We have an Albert Winkelmann in the RAD 1938 rank list, however no Max.

Nice Godet bar.

Definitely him. Very peculiar that he chose to split his rows between the LS awards.

Congratulations on this very fine bar! Having looked through some of the published award lists, I would think this must have belonged to the reigning Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern. There are very few (besides Hindenburg, Mackensen and reigning princes/dukes/kings) who got, for example, both Grandcrosses with X of SEHO and White Falcon. And the few I found can be ruled out for other reasons. Wilhelm of Hohenzollern got the SEHO Grandcross with X on 10th Jan 1916 (Karl Anton did not get this one). He of course had his own Hohenzollern Ehrenkreuz 1st cl, which he put first. He had already received the Grandcross of the Württemberg Crown before the war, so probably got the swords to it during the war. Maybe that is the reason why it comes last of the Grandcrosses, because otherwise a kingdom should come before (grand) dukedoms (if the recipient cared for precedence at all.) Wilhelm is just not in the White Falcon list, but that is not complete.

Very nice!

A very fine bar, congratulations! I agree with what you think, this is an original bar in which the 2nd class Red Cross Medal was lost and incorrectly replaced. I believe this was not an officer's bar. The Medjidieh order is key here: foreigners were usually awarded one grade higher than what nationals of the same rank got (as was common in many countries). So Dr. Zschech got a 3rd class neck cross, which he would not have received in Prussia in that grade. This one was probably not a Dr., but a senior level medical NCO, who got a 5th class which (for nationals) would have been conferred only to officers. The construction of the bar also looks more like an NCO's. So while the wearer is unfortunately invisible, it is of course a great bar. Regards Chris

Fritz Erbse got his Dr. med. in 1902 from the University of Würzburg.

Thanks laurens for the additional info!