hucks216

Strange you should ask that as I was going to start one last night but couldn't be 100% certain if there was already one or not. Blomberg crops up quite a lot now on pre-war promotion citations as he seems to of authorised or counter signed a fair percentage of them. EDIT: I've just done a search using the word 'Promotion' and it seems that there are a few threads where a promotion citation has been posted and while someone tried to start a dedicated Promotion Citation thread in 2005 it only attracted one extra post. So in effect, no we don't have a current one but I can just bring the 2005 one back to the top for others to add theirs to.

Just shows that even dealers need to do their homework when it comes to paperwork. I know of a dealer recently who bought a single KvK citation from some source for a lot of money (more then it was worth anyway) and listed it for something like 275 Euros thinking the signature on it was that of Wilhelm Keitel. The signature was in fact of that of his brother Bodewin and the rank given under the signature was General der Infanterie. If he had of just done a basic search he would of found out that Wilhelm was a General der Artillerie, not Infanterie, and in fact by the date on the citation Wilhelm had been a Generalfeldmarschall for something like 2 years! The dealer ended up having to alter the price down to 100 Euros on which he was making a loss. The Wilhelm/Bodewin thing seems to be a common mistake. There is a thread on the WAF where someone seems to of made the same mistake and his comment when he was told the truth made me chuckle - "Thanks for the help with the doc, i didnt know Keitel had a brother who was a general, i thought it was a joke." Just a simple bit of background research was all it needed. Promotion documents are one of those douments that I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to buy but they can be a good way to get some decent signatures from Adolf Hitler down to Fighter Aces for a relateively decent price.

And finally, as can be seen from the extra pieces of paper inserted into the front (Post #1) and back of his Soldbuch, after the war Bruno Clausen was employed in some capacity by the Royal Navy...

(2)

Judging by the entires (and lack of) in the Führungsbuch and the entries in the SB it would appaer that Clausen left Z10 Hans Lody in late 1940 and spent the rest of the war at the Torpedoschule at Murwik where he was awarded the KvK II Kl mit Schwertern in April 1944 and the KvK I Kl mit Schwertern in April 1945. And here are just a couple of his 'write-ups' from his time on Z10 Hans Lody, taken from the Führungsbuch... (1)

The Führungsbuch shows his progression through the ranks until he becomes an officer candidate in October 1940 and from his Soldbuch we have confirmation of his rise from Leutnant to eventual Kapitänleutnant, to which he was promoted on 1st December 1944.

His personnel details page of the Führungsbuch...

The Hans Lody Campaign listing in the Führungsbuch...

As can be seen from the Soldbuch he was awarded the EK II in November 1939 and the Destroyer Badge in October 1940 and it was while serving on Z10 Hans Lody that he earned these two awards. Page 3 of the Führungsbuch has a list showing the dates of when the Hans Lody sailed on operations while Clausen was onboard and so he participated in not only the merchant warfare 'sweeps' through the North Sea in the early days of the war but also the offensive mine-laying operations near the Humber Estuary on 18-19th Nov 1939 and off the coast of Cromer in Norfolk on 6-7th December 1939. It was during this latter operation that the British destroyer HMS Jersey was badly damaged by a torpedo fired from one of the German destroyers. He was also onboard when Hans Lody was part of the escorting force for Scharnhorst, Gneisenau & Admiral Hipper during Operation Juno in June 1940 and participated in the sinking of the tanker 'Juniper' and rescued 98 survivors from the Orama. On the way back to Drontheim on 9th June the Hans Lody captured a fishing vessel before escorting a bomb damaged Scharnhorst from Drontheim to Kiel.

The Soldbuch was opened in 1941 which is when the Kriegsmarine adopted the Soldbuch for their personnel, not using the SB before that year...

Wartime promotions

Here is a Soldbuch & Führungsbuch to someone who joined the Kriegsmarine in 1930 as a sailor and finished the war as a Kapitänleutnant having served on the Kreuzer 'Königsberg' (Pre-war) and the Zerstörer Hans Lody during the first year of the war before being assigned to the Torpedoschule for the remainder of his service.

I have nothing about that era of the SS in my library so I can't determine who the signature is, or is supposed to be, but it just doesn't look right. That's just a gut feeling so I might be wrong. However the EK citation is a definite fake and I wouldn't mind assuming that the EK citation and promotion document were added to the other two to beef up the price.

There's just something about the signature I don't like.

What makes this citation alittle more interesting is that it seems to of been sent to a Frau Anni Czajerek (the LW soldier being Ewald Czajerek) and with the citation was a note with the reason why he won the award. The translation of the note (thanks to Brian)... 1.) For the award of the EK II class: Gefreiter Czajerek Ewald Clerk and K 1 (cannonneer) at the alarm gun Gefreiter Ewald Czajerek was deployed as K 1 at the alarm gun during the terror attack of 30 July 1943. As such he showed exemplary calm and a high degree conscientiousness in all phases during this exciting night of battle, whereby he contributed decisively so that the remainder of the crew carried out its duty at the gun. In spite of the nearly constant impacting of high explosive and incendiary bombs in the closest proximity he continued to fire unwaveringly and prevented the aimed targeting of bombs on the Horst-Wessel barracks and thereby prevented the possible destruction of many of the soldiers in the barracks.

Here is a nice single citation awarded to a member of a flak unit based in the Hamburg area. He was active during the massive RAF raids during late July/early August 1943 that were assigned the codename Operation Gomorrah and resulted in the firestorm that ravaged the city.

Should of trusted your gut instinct and took his money - it's a fake add-on as you suspected. And I have serious doubts about the promotion document as well.

The signature is that of DKiG Träger Otto Paetsch who was killed in 1945.

Otto Paetsch (DKiG 1943) - killed/died as SS-Obersturmbannführer and Kommandeur of SS-Pz.Rgt 10 on 16th March 1945 at Altdamm.

Yep - he held that position from 1st Oct 1942 to 22nd Feb 1945.

Rudolf Schniewindt - Pour le mérite (1918) & DKiS (1943).

That is possibly a stamped signature with the white(ish) bits being where the ink has faded or where the ink didn't take.

The signature is similar to Erwin Rösener's although whether it is handsigned or not is impossible to say from the images.

A name that lives on in the current German Navy.

Very nice page indeed - Destroyer and Blockade Breaker awards, not to mention the Narvikschild. What Destroyer was he on at Narvik?