webr55

Ah thanks - found him: Eugen Mahla, railway service: ,

I found this picture sometime ago on the net, but haven't been able to ID him yet: Seems he has a KO2, OEK2, SEHO (?), BMVO, RAO3, AOR

Very interesting! Thank you for this additional information.

Sorry, I don’t think this will be possible. Too many Lts from Karab Regiment got the White Falcon.

I agree with Dave, it cannot be Meister. Meister did not have the Bavarian MVO, and in any case, he was not yet General in 1935, when this was taken. Neither was Rantzau. I tend to think this is Karl Eberth. He only had a BMVO and the Bavarian Long Service and was already General in 1935. Went back to Heer later. And he came from the Bavarian Feldartillerie initially.

After so many years, I have come up with another possible suspect: Dr. Albert Brecke, born 1862 in Hannover, got the Bavarian St. Michael 4 w/ crown in 1905 as Stabsarzt. Went aD in 1896. Listed in the Ehrenrangliste under "Wiederverwendete inaktive Sanitäts-Offz." as Oberstabsarzt aD, Landwehr Feldlazarett 11. Does anyone have more information about him?

Very interesting bar, never seen one like this.

Thank you! Not sure if that says anything, but the Reck family originally came from a region close to Anhalt.

I don't know yet, might have been a personal connection. He got the Anhalt peacetime award between 1904 and 1908, as Hauptmann/Major in the Infanterie Leib-Regiment. By the way, does anyone know his death year?

Looks like I have his matching button hole ribbon bar: Regards Chris

Very interesting find, congratulations! Especially the different types of swords are remarkable. Any indication from what exact year it is? According to the types of awards covered, it should be around 1936-38.

And my Star of Brabant ribbon bar to Major dL Hans Eberhardt. The class is a Knight 1st with crown:

...

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