Patents Appending

[Guest Rick Research]

Commissions in Imperial Germany were called "Patents." When an officer or civil servant of equivalent rank had been confirmed in a position, he was said to be "patentiert." Otherwise, an acting rank was simply "charakterisiert" or "ernannt." Seniority was a completely separate issue, and was often made retroactive even to a point BEFORE an officer candidate had actually entered the service-- whereupon the recipient of such back-dated seniority was known as "vorpatentiert." Since seniority was the normal indicator for future promotion, any "edge" that started an officer or official out with an advantage over his contemporaries would snowball the higher he rose-- and the further ahead he got.

Here are a variety of Patents.

To start with, on the 93rd anniversary of his commissioning, army Feuerwerks Leutnant Adolf R?pnack's Patent of 31 May 1912-- N. Feuerwerks and Zeug officers were drawn from the ranks of long serving NCOs recruited for these ordnance specialist careers. R?pnack had enlisted 1 October 1899 for this purpose.

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Note the poor quality paper, and the revenue tax stamp at upper left.

[Guest Rick Research]

Every Patent was placed at the spot where the Great Seal was applied and/or the monarch autographed it. This was dated at the New Palace.

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Notice the seniority suffix "N," which indicated where R?pnack rated with all the other former NCOs commissioned as Feuerwerks Leutnant on 31 May 1912.

Before the First World War, having taken over 12 years to reach Second Lieutenant, and given the nature of their duties, no ordnance specialist officer could aspire to a rank higher than Hauptmann-- ever. That was raised under the interwars Reichswehr to Major (both specialties then rolled into the new "Zeugs-" officer corps). Under the Third Reich, in very rare cases (3 army, 2 air force), GENERALS were promoted from these ranks.

And one of them was Adolf R?pnack, commissioned Generalmajor in the Luftwaffe 1 June 1944 #1, as Munitions Inspector in the Supply Office of the Reichs Air Ministry 1 April 1939 to 30 April 1945.

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R?pnack (1881-1964) had had a particularly interesting career-- he had served in Turkey during WW1 as an artillery instructor and line of communications commander (Turkish army rank of Captain), then resigned from the German army as a charakterisiert Zeugmajor in 1921. From 1923 to 1927 he was an instructor at the War School and engineer at the arsenal of the BOLIVIAN army, with rank as a Lieutenant Colonel. He returned to the German army in a technically civilian Beamter capacity--actually the secret, so-called "Black Reichswehr."

In 1934 he transferred to the Luftwaffe, and commanded Luftzeuggruppe 88 of the "Legion Condor" in Spain 1936-37 as an Oberstleutnant.

This portrait of him (Sir Alec Guinness as Smilie) is ? the essential reference series by Karl Friedrich Hildebrand, "Die Generale der deutschen Luftwaffe 1935-1945," Band 3, Biblio Verlag: Osnabr?ck, 1992.

[Guest Rick Research]

Even officer cadets had patents. Here is that of F?hnrich zur See (12 April 1913 N3n) Joachim Coeler (1891-1955)

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[Guest Rick Research]

I am unable to scan the full lengths of these because they are longer than my scanner. Here is the inside-- Patents were four pages, with two of those blank, forming a "back cover" for the inside page, as here.

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Coeler was a naval flyer in WW1, was retained in the interwar Reichsmarine, rising to Korvettenkapit?n zur See, then transferred to the new Luftwaffe in 1934 in its naval aviation arm.

He commanded the 9th Flieger Division, a major bombing command during the Battle of Britain, for whose ultimately failed actions he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 12 July 1940 and promotion to Generalleutnant one week later.

He ended the war as General der Flieger (1.1.42 #1) and chief of Transport Aviation.

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Photo ? Karl Friedrich Hildebrand's "Die Generale der deutschen Luftwaffe 1935-1945," Band 1, 1990, Biblio Verlag: Osnabr?ck. I cannot recommend these invaluable research volumes enough-- although long "out of print," copies can still be found (while they LAST, folks, while they LAST!) in immaculate never opened condition. For Luftwaffe Generals research, you MUST have these books!

[Guest Rick Research]

Now if ONE Patent was nice...

former Vizewachtmeister (only regular army and navy officer cadets were known as F?hnriche) under Landwehrbezirk L?beck Hans Behncke commissioned as Leutnant der Reserve (of Cavalry) at Leipzig (wherever the seal was...) 18 October 1913 W5w

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.

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[Guest Rick Research]

... Wouldn't TWO for the same thing be nicer?

Behncke was a Mecklenburger... and due to military treaties from the creation of the Second Reich, some minor monarchs, like the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, continued to have legal rights concerning their "own" armies.

Here is Behncke's MECKLENBURG commission, dated the same day,

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but reflecting the more personal attention here (the Kaiser rarely signed army commissions below the rank of Captain), actually hand signed by the local ruler.

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Behncke served as the orderly officer of a NAVAL division in Marinekorps Flandern during the war, and was one of a number of rather surprisingly OLD pre-1914 reserve officers brought back in the mid-1930s as an (E) officer. He ended WW2 as an Oberstleutnant.

[Guest Rick Research]

Of course, when the Kaiser DID actually autograph a Patent, there was no difficulty seeing so.

Here he has barely fitted his ego to the width of the page on Hauptmann der Landwehr Wilhelm H?ne's 22 April 1912 G4g Patent, issued while vacationing at Achilleion, on the island of Corfu. So this commission and all others from that day would have sped back to Berlin by Imperial Courier and eventually reached the Happy Recipients.

Imagine their faces, as they turned the page and beheld The Imperial Calligraphy!

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[Guest Rick Research]

But wait!!! Before a youth could be patentiert even as a F?hnrich he had to be "ripe." An unfortunate translation of the German word "Reife." I prefer to call this Reife zum F?hnrich a Readiness Certificate.

Here we shall follow a Bavarian officer from Offizieraspirant Unteroffizier to Oberstleutnant.

Alois Louis (born 1873) received his Ensign's Readiness Certificate as a Bavarian 14th Infantry Regiment Unteroffizier on 13 March 1894.

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It is, as you see, basically the same as a school report card, grading his subjects of study and fitness to advance to officer candidate. Note that the lofty personage attesting to the results of Unteroffizier Louis's fitness is no less than the Chief of the Bavarian General Staff.

[Guest Rick Research]

Unteroffizier Louis duly received his Patent as F?hnrich 1 April 1894 No. 8

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[Guest Rick Research]

But wait! There's MORE! Being a Fully Ripened F?hnrich was not the end of the process!

Back to War School, and ...

the Reife zum Offizier:

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penultimate hurdle to a regular officer's career... attained 8 February 1895

[Guest Rick Research]

The last hurdle, of course, was the up or down blackball vote of the regimental officers.

But Louis suited his potential 14th Infantry peers-to-be, and he received his commision as Second-Lieutenant 4 March 1895 No. 133

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Bavaria being much smaller and more gem?tlich than Prussia, all officer's received the Royal Autograph. Or, in this case, the Vice-Regal, since then-74 year old Luitpold of Bavaria was acting as Regent for the mad "King" Otto.

[Guest Rick Research]

Now, the drawback to peacetime service in a small army kicked in... with glacial promotions.

Oberleutnant 27 May 1905 No. 3

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The Prince Regent, as his signature attests, has gone from a vigorous 74 to an 84 year old elderly royal gentleman, signing, signing, signing Patents.

[Guest Rick Research]

When, after seventeen years of service, Louis received this Patent as Hauptmann 23 October 1910 No. 5

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Prince Regent Luitpold was 89 years old

[Guest Rick Research]

Kaiser Wilhelm at 54,

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and Prince Regent Luitpold at 74,

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84,

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and 89.

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The psychological aspects of handwriting ....

[Guest Rick Research]

Then came The Great War. A machine gun officer himself, ironically Hauptmann Louis of Bavarian Infantry Regiment 14 was severely wounded by enemy machine gun bullets through both legs on 25 August 1914. He would lose a leg, luckily for him in the days of primitive prostheses, below the knee, on 10 October and spend almost a year at home in private medical care before being assigned to the Eastern Front to the staff of Military Railways Directorate 6 in Brest-Litovsk, where he would rack up a surprising array of lounge lizard awards for transitting royals.

Promoted Major 17 January 1917 No. 37

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with his contemporaries, wartime being wartime-- even though it was obvious that a one legged infantry officer had no future prospects in a peacetime army.

Here we have the autograph of Luitpold's son, King Ludwig III.

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None of that decades of pretending that nutter Otto was still King! Ludwig had himself crowned almost as soon as his lonnnnnnnnng serving, self-effacing Papa was in the ground-- Crazy Otto would not have a convenient one way midnight dip in the lake until 1916.

[Guest Rick Research]

Quick to seize his regal title, Ludwig III's crown, and life, would soon be gone.

Defeat was not kind to Bavarian army paperwork. Imagine Louis's reaction to opening his mail and finding this "dog license" form inside, tersely stating that he was now the proud possessor of the no longer exalted rank of

charakterisiert Oberstleutnant ausser Dienst 27 June 1921

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Having served as the railways commandant of N?rnberg from 1 September 1918 until his discharge on 1 February 1920, this year and a half to getting around to a courtesy bump out rank in name only must have been

underwhelming.

Still, one leg and all, Louis served for weeks at a time in illegal Black Reichswehr maneuvers in the 1920s and early 1930s. Rejected as too old for (E) service in the revived Wehrmacht-- 62 in 1935, nonetheless, when war again broke out, the 66 year old went back to the NEW colors as an Oberstleutnant zV

in the N?rnberg office of the Abwehr, where he was still serving in 1941, when his papers in my possession these 20 years cease, 47 years after they began telling his life's story.

[Stogieman]

Rick, nice thread on an often overlooked part of a man's history.

My very first Imperial Group was to a Saxon Leutnant (AOR1wX/AOR2wX, etc.) from WW1. I received his medal bar, ribbon bar and documents. The Patents were all hand-signed by King Albert and very cool (thought I at the time). Every award document was there as well except one! He had a WW2 25-Year LS Cross on the bar, but the document was not in the group. I always thought that of everything they saved, the WW2 document was the one thing they threw away.

[Guest Rick Research]

from a local collection:

This is a typical mid-war Prussian Leutnant der Reserve commission. Reduced to a single sheet and cheaply printed, it bears the Imperial embossed seal but is otherwise a pale shadow of pre-war paperwork.

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Vizewachtmeister Wilhelm Biel is referred to as "of" his home local regulating draft office-- Landwehrbezirk Braunschweig. He is commissioned without seniority established, on 28 January 1916. That means he was very likely a 1914 war volunteer whose cadet training led to a mass of commissions at the end of January 1916. (He's bumped back a day after the Kaiser's All-Highest Birthday... on the "B List!")

There were only two Brunswick field artillery units that I know of--

Feldart Regt 46 in the 20th Infantry Division, and RFAR 46 in 46th Res Div.

[Guest Rick Research]

From the same collection, a Bavarian pair from just before and late in the war-- quite a rapid rise, since even in wartime it usually took 4 years to go from Leutnant to Oberleutnant!

Robert Garbe was commissioned a Leutnant der Reserve in Bavarian J?ger Battalion 2. Note his seniority number at top right. This was how the Bavarians kept track of who was senior to who-- but unlike the Prussians with THEIR weird rank date suffixes, Bavarian rank Lists never SHOWED these seniority positions-- so I don't know what GOOD they did in "real life!"

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[Guest Rick Research]

And his Oberleutnant dR promotion:

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Beyond these two, I have absolutely NO information on Garbe.

It's quite an odd name, and I have always wondered if he was the 1944 military court president, "Dr. Garbe" who pulled a fast one on the SS and got the unfortunate "Great Escape" commandant tried and convicted and shipped off to the front busted

and out of the clutches of the SS who wanted him d-e-a-d

[Guest Rick Research]

Noncommissioned and Warrant Officers did not receive (sniff) the exalted "Patent," but rather a "Bestallung."

This former Bavarian career NCO (14 years active duty) was brought back on mobilization as an Offizierstellvertreter and from that, almost immdiately made a Feldwebel-Leutnant:

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the rest of his story can be found at:

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=7272&hl=

[joerookery]

He is commissioned without seniority established, on 28 January 1916. That means he was very likely a 1914 war volunteer whose cadet training led to a mass of commissions at the end of January 1916.

Rick I'm having problems understanding ages and sources for all these 1914 Freiwillinge. Can you expand on your comment about cadet training please Thanks.

Edited April 12, 2006 by joerookery

[Guest Rick Research]

You mean Biel? It's simply that January 1916 was the mass commissioning of August 1914 war volunteers who were reserve officer candidates. They were the first 'war class" that generally had not had any pre-war training.

[joerookery]

Thanks so much! I know little of the mass commissioning. So much to learn.... Thanks again.

[Glenn J]

Speaking of "mass" commissioning, literally thousands of Offizieraspiranten of the Reserve and Landwehr were commissioned on the 22nd of March 1915. Unlike the guys commissioned in 1916 it is most probable that the vast majority of these chaps were already serving as "one Year Volunteers" at the outbreak of war.

Regards

Glenn