OvBacon

1 hour ago, Trooper_D said:

 

Secondly, I never expected to see a UK Order of St John medal worn court mounted in the Prussian style. Rather nice! My second and a half observation is that she is wearing it back-to front as the Lion should be in the top right quadrant rather than the Unicorn

 

From a quick search it looks like that is a very common mistake and I see a lot of examples of mounted medals accidentally flipped. But I also found a breast star that must have been rotated incorrectly when they attached the hinge. 

26 minutes ago, jameslien said:

Both  of those photos are of General Rudolf von Borries.  

I am also trying to find a photo of PLM  recipient General Frhr. Otto von Diepenbroick-Grueter.  I  am reading a book now about the German Generals that fought against Patton in WWI.  It has a photo of him as a cadet.  It would be good to see him as a general.

Funny thing that one of his daughters married a "Von Borries"

(I think his name is Otto von Diepenbroick-Grüter)

Quick search online made me only fid this additional image of him. (sorry no better quality available as this postcard is not in my collection).

As Chris indicated above.... if you want to "fake" a specific war zippo you have to have one made in a specific year and then you can engrave it with whatever and so it can be hard to know if a zippo from the vietnam war was really from a soldier or not. 

2 hours ago, Gordon Craig said:

Gentlemen,

Learned something new again today!  Didn't know that Zippo lighters were date marked.  Here is a link to a list of date codes etc that might prove useful.

https://www.zippo.com/pages/date-codes 

Regards,

Gordon

 

yup, thats why I showed the bottom of the zippo. It allows you to easily date the zippo and thus determine if it could have been from a specific time period (like the vietnam war). 

2 hours ago, Herman said:

Indeed that is the case.

I presume you deciphered the Dutch text, but to be complete:

 

Lieutenant General 2nd May 1930

Retired 1st May 1934.

 

Promoted in 1934 to Grandofficer in the Order of Orange-Nassau with the swords  (Military Division)

Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion 

Numeral XL to the Officers Cross

Promoted to Grand Officer in the Legion Of Honor of France.

 

Best regards 

Herman 

Thank you Herman for all the additional info/research ......

I have the feeling I'll call on you more often for similar information, seems like you have some good literature on the subject.

1 hour ago, Herman said:

From the Dutch officers list of 1929. He was at the time Major General and commander of the 1st Division.

 

Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau 

Officers Cross with numeral XXXV

Mobilisation cross  1914 - 1918

Commander 2nd class Sword Order of Sweden

Commander 2nd class Danebrog Order of Denmark

Officer Legion of Honor of France

Officer in the Order of the Crown of Belgium 

 

His rank and date of promotion:

2lt Artillery 21st July 1892

1Lt  19th November 1898

Captain  1st of May 1911

Major  1st of November 1920

Lieutenant Colonel 2nd of May 1924

Colonel 2nd of May 1926

Major General  2nd of May 1928

 

So after 1929 he gained his two highest Dutch orders.

 

Regards 

Herman 

It also looks like he might have been bumped up to "Grand Officer" of the Legion of Honour

I found this in a publication from 1938

1 hour ago, Herman said:

If he survived WW2, which he did not, his Dutch orders would have been rescinded by Royal Decree.

This happened to several collaborators after the war. One retired general escaped this shame by committing suicide.

Seijffardt, if he had survived the war, would have been convicted in court, probably the death sentence.

There is no doubt he would have been stripped and executed... 

I was really surprised that people who backed an invading force, and thus pretty much saying that the previous government and power structure was invalid, were still wearing the decorations of their denounced leaders.  

could they be navy

I've been playing with the image in photoshop and it does indeed appear there is an eagle on the cap.

2 minutes ago, Great Dane said:

Dannebrog Commander awarded 16. Nov. 1924.

Sword Commander awarded 1924.

Nice.... thanks

So we have 

? - Knight of  the Order of the Netherlands Lion (The Netherlands) 
   - Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (The Netherlands)
   - Commander 2nd class in The Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark)
   - Commander 2nd class in The Order of the Sword (Sweden)
??- Officer's Long Service Cross (The Netherlands) 
??- Mobilization Cross 1914-1918 (The Netherlands) 
 

58 minutes ago, Great Dane said:

I can identify the Danish Order of Dannebrog (Commander) and the Swedish Order of the Sword (Commander). The rest are a little blurry...

Thanks for that input

So here I see a Knight of  the Order of the Netherlands Lion (The Netherlands),
Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (The Netherlands), Officer's Long Service Cross (The Netherlands) and a Mobilization Cross 1914-1918 (The Netherlands)??

Here is a photo of him with all his awards/medals and so I was curious as to which he is wearing..

Pretty much anything written about the man, including articles from right after the war, do not mention his orders/awards/medals...

I was kinda looking through some footage from occupied netherlands during WWII and I found this photo and got really interested in the man standing jolly with the Germans behind Mussert (speaking and who was the leading Dutch collaborator of WWII) and who is proudly wearing his Grand Officer breast star of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Now I'm kinda understanding that the germans kept their pre NAZI medals and awards but for a Dutch officer to proudly wear his medals that were awarded to him by a king/queen he has clearly denounced seemed odd to me.

So I was like who is this man and what awards/medals is he wearing while clearly supporting the NAZI occupation. 

Here another image showing his breast star even better.

He's sending off the first Dutch SS soldiers to the eastern front... bet they stopped smiling once they got there ;/

So I clearly found out this man is Hendrik Alexander Seyffardt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_Seyffardt).

Interesting to see how someone who has served his country his whole life and retired with full honors can then turn around and betray his country so explicitly.

A quick google search of "Die Orden und Ehrenzeichen des Reichskanzlers Fürst Otto von Bismarck" brings up a lot of places where you can get it including Amazon. I'm in the US and it is not delivered here but depending on your location your Amazon or book provider might.

This really is one of the things I love about this forum (other too) where you get to learn about things that are part of my interest but not something I would have otherwise ever focused on and so I would have probably not know about it. It really is just fun to be able to log on and always learn something I didn't know before. 

How freaking cool is that.... I love it. So interesting to see something that you just don't really think about. 

3 minutes ago, bigjarofwasps said:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/uk-politics/2110888/coronavirus-support-grows-to-honour-frontline-nhs-workers-with-medal-after-crisis/amp/
 

 

As I indicated earlier, if you only give a tangible "thanks" to "frontline" workers it would be a complete slap in the face of all those who are risking their own health working in supermarkets, stores, trash removal etc etc or those who are going out of their way to assist others by doing the shopping for them etc. As someone who has served in the military and worked in an operating room for decades I knew that my jobs brought risks with them and thus needed way less gratitude for simply doing my job but a cashier in a supermarket or the cleaning staff of public buildings or health facilities do not get paid to put their lives and/or health on the line. These are the people that deserve a ton of credit and respect. I'm not saying that it isn't hard for health professionals right now as I have a lot of friends still working in OR's/ER's and ICU's and they are working their asses off... but they also know that they are getting tons of support and gratitude while a lot of people in stores still have to deal with aggression and disrespectful behavior. 

So you would have to make any type of medal available to all who are helping which seems like a unimaginable task. 

would the owner have been German?

I've been combing through the interwebs for the past few days and hove not been able to find a similar example... So please let us know if you do find it's exact origine  

42 minutes ago, saschaw said:

My best guess would be "24", but I'm no expert on 1939 EKs, and my eyes aren't good enough to compare.

You'll might find pictures for comparison of all cross types on ek1-dna.de ...

Awesome... thanks for this

This is super helpful ??????

40 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Those are some beautiful bars Claudio and Mike and thanks for posting them.

Mike to you know who your bar belonged to? What is the third decoration from the right?

looks like an Austrian Order of Leopold

Awesome.... Thanks for helping me confirm. 

52 minutes ago, Bayern said:

Very Interesting photos ! Amersfoort appears like a Barracks City , as they existed in USA  or in Hungary ,Hajmasker.in this case . The WW2  bad reputed Theresienstad because of the nazi Concentration Camp was originally a Austrian Military City thanks for share .

The "Infanterie Kazerne" was more central and closed when they moved barracks to the outskirts. The city itself is a old medieval city with castle walls and all. Amersfoort did also have one of the worst concentration camps of The Netherlands during WW2

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amersfoort_concentration_camp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amersfoort

4 hours ago, laurentius said:

Although it might look bleak compared to the other pieces in this thread, the Saxon-style Frackspange in my collection is still my favourite piece.

I don't think you can claim "bleak" when having these