Freikorps awards in Third Reich

[Humberto Corado]

hello,

I am wondering which freikorps awards were allowed to use during third reich?

Thanks in advance!

[Ulsterman]

Baltic Cross, Iron Roland, Silesian Eagle . One sees other banned awards occasionally in photos though. The Baltic and Silesian were both for action against "foreigners" and I'm willing to bet the Iron Roland was a tip of the hat to the local party loyalists.

Edited August 22, 2008 by Ulsterman

[Humberto Corado]

Baltic Cross, Iron Roland, Silesian Eagle . One sees other banned awards occasionally in photos though. The Baltic and Silesian were both for action against "foreigners" and I'm willing to bet the Iron Roalnd was a tip of the hat to the local party loyalists.

Hello Ulsterman,

Just three of so many medals granted to freikorps in those years?? do you know why?

[Guest Rick Research]

The Bremen Iron Roland was the creation of a legal city-state government which had existed under the Empire as one of Germany's federal states. While it was awarded in tiny numbers for ONE DAY of fighting, it thus had a bureaucratic "legitimacy" that pins invented by some ex-Captain to give to his private army of 300 men did not.

The other two were widely issued to many different units and so were not only much more common than private little units' self-created badges, but also filled the nationalistic purpose after 1919/21 of keeping alive hopes for the restoration of a Greater Germany's 1914 borders. There were certainly OTHER awards that might have been given official recognition (Grenzschutz Ost and so on) but those apparently had no important policy-making sponsors.

Politics and symbolism.

[J Temple-West]

The most commonly seen awards:

Silesian Eagle 1st/2nd class.

Baltic Cross.

[bigjarofwasps]

One of the British Free Corps guys, was awarded the German Wound Badge, if I really he`s the only Englishman to have been awarded a Nazi medal.

Slightly off topic, I believe that an RAMC VC winners, was awared the Iron Cross, but this was well before WW2, at around the time of Waterloo if memory serves me well.

[Alex K]

Slightly off topic, I believe that an RAMC VC winners, was awared the Iron Cross, but this was well before WW2, at around the time of Waterloo if memory serves me well.

I'm?not?sure?about?that?but?a non-combatants ek2?was?awarded?to?a?british?medical?person for medical assistance in the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war, his details I,m pretty sure have been posted either on this site or the GWF.

Edit, in fact the man's here

http://www.answers.com/topic/royal-army-medical-corps

regards

Alex

Edited April 26, 2007 by Alex K

[Humberto Corado]

The Bremen Iron Roland was the creation of a legal city-state government which had existed under the Empire as one of Germany's federal states. While it was awarded in tiny numbers for ONE DAY of fighting, it thus had a bureaucratic "legitimacy" that pins invented by some ex-Captain to give to his private army of 300 men did not.

The other two were widely issued to many different units and so were not only much more common than private little units' self-created badges, but also filled the nationalistic purpose after 1919/21 of keeping alive hopes for the restoration of a Greater Germany's 1914 borders. There were certainly OTHER awards that might have been given official recognition (Grenzschutz Ost and so on) but those apparently had no important policy-making sponsors.

Politics and symbolism.

thank you all for your help! I have not seen until today your responses.

[Ulsterman]

Hi Humberto!

Welcome back!

There are photos of some naughty officers wearing the banned V corps badge too. There is only one book in English out there on these awards-the VERY old Verkuilen Ager book. However, there are more in German.

Can you help us with some translations in the Cuban medals section?