Rolls

[Guest Rick Research]

Coburg's Carl Eduard medals are done... on to the Ernestine rolls.

Now, what "use" is all of this?

In 1983 a British "coffee table" Pretty Pictures militaria book appeared, showing anonymous medal and ribbon bars in that section.

Here's one. (Neat little matching mini chain--note how the SV3aX mini has a fantasy crown to make it "look nice" in the Saxon sandwich)

[attachmentid=51669]

Even Erhard Roth's 1990s work on Saxon officers didn't help, since he never had access to the all important

Hohenzollern rolls.

And after TWENTY THREE YEARS, for my own mental satisfaction, I NOW know that THIS set belonged to char. Major aD Richard Flechsig of Inf Rgt 134.

Now I know, SOME of you would like better "turnaround" than 23 years on YOUR stuff but hey, it's free. You gets whats yous pays for.

[Guest Rick Research]

Now WHERE'S Ricky been, some of you are wondering...

One ringy dingy, FIVE ringy dingies.

Yes, folks, Ernestine has FIVE count 'em FIVE count 'em FIVE separate, distinct, non-matching award rolls to go through as I wade into Coburg's WW1 awards. I just finished down to Commander 2nd X with notes on promotions up from Knight 1st Xs yesterday BECAUSE

1) Coburg Roll 1 has literally microscopic print, though it is very neat. Unfortunately, magnifying glass teensyweensy. It matches its twin below only about 3 in 5 times.

2) Coburg Roll 2 was written by a demented 80 year old chained in the Schloss Dungeon, with handwriting so bad I can often only match it by the award dates. Even his numbers are freakish, with 4s having their mid stroke on the bottom so they look like Ls or Cs. Impossible to tell 0 from 3 from 8.

3) Altenburg Roll-- because I need to look for "gemeinsam" awards. The late Erhard Roth did ALTENBURG, but not Coburg. He mentions Altenburg awards in common with Gotha, but... NOT the other way around.

You'd THINK common awards would be DUPLICATED, wouldn't you? But most of the time they are NOT.

4) Meiningen Roll 1: HUGE, massive, ledgers, hundreds of pages. GREAT handwriting and size, but weighs what a large dog does, and open out to the size of a newspaper, so awkward to handle with typing space the size of a phone book here on the computer keyboard desk. Same remarks as Altenburg apply.

5) Meiningen Super Roll 5: I just found this in the PILE at 1 AM this morning. I had overlooked it because it starts with peacetime House Order awards from 1911 and I wasn't interested in them...

BUT it appears to have been an ALL THREE DUCHIES "Master Roll" kept at Meiningen, listing the awards of all 3 states. It thus has, you guessed it, the USUAL overlap, not included elsewhere awards of the other FOUR rolls. Unfortunately it ends New Year's 1916.

So I have to look through ALL FIVE to hope for missing first names, better assignment lines, and so on.

And to think I gave up my glamourous career as an international model for THIS.

[Guest Brian von Etzel]

And to think I gave up my glamourous career as an international model for THIS.

You're still a pretty Imperial boy, just doesn't have the glamour of the runway!

[Guest Rick Research]

It is with appropriate joy that can announce Coburg's Ritter 1 X rolls have been completed after hellacious struggles with the 5 rolls and the Sutterlin Of Death. And I can now definitively identify

[attachmentid=52938]

Well, not quite!!!

468 awards (1 may be a duplicate in error, 467)

-11 turned in on promotion to Commander 2bX classes.

1 holder of TWO Knights Crosses-- Obstfelder up top of this thread getting his Ritter 2 X from Meiningen and Ritter 1 X from Coburg, though a native of neither. As far as I can tell there were no pairs at all from the published Altenburg rolls nor could I find a solitary one in perusing the Meiningen rolls (ending December 1916).

One recipient got his PEACETIME Ritter 1 back, which he had turned in for the version with swords, when he got the Commander X. That is the ONLY such case I have seen noted on any of the rolls.

[Guest Rick Research]

And with semi-penultimate joy:

HSH3bX for Sachsen-Coburg is done and as done as it will ever be, from the five rolls combined. 1,096 to 1,098 awards listed (on 1 or more rolls) with two that are almost certainly duplicates un-caught but that I haven't been able to verify as doubled.

Slav... work begins on the Verdienstkreuz X tomorrow, and then the Gold Ernestine Medals X:

should be done and FINITO with Coburg in 10 days or two weeks and then...

on to Lippe-Detmold. I have been prevailed upon to do those few to HAVE them done, and will include their VERY few colonial awards X too. THEN Sachsen Weimar.

So on schedule, and by the end of 2006 should have completed:

Principality of Hohenzollern

Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha

Lippe-Detmold (ORDERS not any of the wartime crosses)

Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach

and will settle down for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng winter mired in Sachsen-Meiningen

though there is HOPE that there MAY be additional material on Baden's Z?hringen Lion Order to COMPLETE the rolls where Erhard Roth inexplicably stopped in June 1918 AND have some new and unhoped for Bavarian material as well.

It is certainly true that the work expands to fill up all available time. All too many a 2 AM I'm slaving over cross-checking while Senior Cat has his paws clamped over his eyes trying to sleep.

But it's all "worth" it because so many of you will be naming your first-born after me in perpetual gratitude.

It's pronounced RAY-share-SHAY, by the way.

[landsknechte]

and will settle down for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng winter mired in Sachsen-Meiningen

though there is HOPE that there MAY be additional material on Baden's Z?hringen Lion Order to COMPLETE the rolls where Erhard Roth inexplicably stopped in June 1918 AND have some new and unhoped for Bavarian material as well.

Bavarian? *perk* Do tell... Do tell...

(Would it help if I told you that my middle name is Richard?)

[Guest Rick Research]

Won't know for a month until I go pick up what there is.

Christmas in October.

[Rick]

Can hardly wait to see what aviation awards you can come up with, that aren't covered in Neal's 7 volume set. R.

[Guest Rick Research]

Well, I'm not sorting them out that way, though they'll be easily "findable" from my laboriously neatly typed out modern alphabetized lists. Several things along those lines:

I never understood why Neal did not consider the AIRSHIP service "aviation." He used them as examples ONLY when he had no other illustrative material on a specific topic... and never showed them in the rolls.

I have been able to correct a number of points so far from Neal's work, mostly misreadings of the handwriting that skewed names as printed. Thanks to Daniel and Glenn, have also been ADDING many names where no firsts are shown on the rolls. From the generals and admirals biographies, Nazi edition of Who's Who, naval officers directories and the OTHER rolls produced by Erhard Roth and Willi Geile for Michael Autengruber, I have also added birth and death dates whereever those can be found. The Ongoing Project will be not merely transcribed rolls but "value added" for researchers. (Added comments on other awards ALSO held for instance which will save flipping back and forth and pencilling that in. Aren't I thoughtful?)

Numbers awarded are also turning out different, because having learned it as a Wee One, I can read the old German better and I have counted ACTUAL awards, and not the running totals listed on the rolls for figures that Neal gave as totals. So if, for instance, there were awards listed on lines numbered 1 to 419, he listed 419 awards-- but often there are duplications (some the roll keepers caught and some they didn't) and some of the entries will bear annotations "not awarded" (usually because another class was), or that the entered item was to a museum-- sometimes (looking like an "actual award" without BEING one) with the curator's name and museum address like any military recipient's with unit. Neal slid over these points since he was hunting only for aviation recipients and I am doing evvvvvverybody.

I am now working on the Saxe-Coburg Ernestine Gold Medals with Xs, 250 of 850+ done, and will be finished with those (and Saxe-Coburg) I hope by the end of this weekend. A final sorting and sifting and editing will then occur and it'll be ready to go.

With deep appreciation for your WW1 aviation casualties book I have added non-Roll first names and am now finding births and deaths on otherwise "invisible" enlisted ranks particularly among the senior NCOs in the Gold Medal X rolls.

I have found a number of aviation recipients not instantly RECOGNIZABLE as same. For instance, a couple of otherwise inexplicable navy machinist Deck Offiziere "zur Zeit Gotha" are-- from the sad statistical number who went down in flames verifiable from others with odd names and ranks, and on the same dates, most probably naval airship crew members. Some give a specific Luftschiff number and others have only ... "Marine Luftschiffabteilung." (Same with Uboat crews, for that matter).

Couple of examples from various grades done already--

Among the Saxe-Coburg Verdienstkreuz X recipients:

G?rtner, Max (1881-1918 ) on 16.9.16 Maschinist, Marine Luftschiffabt.

Simmen, Hugo Maschinist Marine Luftschiff "L 23" 30.9.16

and "suspects"

Oldenburg, Heinrich, 12.2.17 Obersteuermann Ober Deck Offizier der Seewehr II, "zur Zeit Gotha" (?)

Voss, Ludwig 12.2.17 Maschinist Deck Offizier d SW II "zur Zeit Gotha" (?)

Among airship officers with the HSH3bX (Knight 2nd Class X):

Bormann, Friedrich 9.7.17 Oberarzt (OK, a doc, not a flyer) Feldluftschiffer Abt 43

Eggert, Bruno Lt dR Kommando Luftschiff "S.L. VII" on 28.6.16

Jahn, Rudolf Oberleutnant zur See Marineluftschiff "L 37" on 14.11.17

HSH3aX (Knight 1st):

Masius (no 1st name) 26.4.15/14.5.15 (different dates on the two main Coburg rolls, oy) Kommandant L.Z. 35

Stelling, August, 20.2.17 Hauptmann zD Kommandant eines Parseval Luftschiff

and so on. Several dozen, probably in all grades.

[Guest Rick Research]

My absolute favorite for Coburg so far has got to be Knight 2nd X to Lt dL I Max Br?ckner of the amazingly improbable sounding

Railway Troops Underwater Smithy Section 5

(Eisenbahntruppen Unterwasser Schmiede Abteilung 5)

[landsknechte]

My absolute favorite for Coburg so far has got to be Knight 2nd X to Lt dL I Max Br?ckner of the amazingly improbable sounding

Railway Troops Underwater Smithy Section 5

(Eisenbahntruppen Unterwasser Schmiede Abteilung 5)

I think that was borrowed from Monty Python...

[Rick]

HSH3aX (Knight 1st):

Masius (no 1st name) 26.4.15/14.5.15 (different dates on the two main Coburg rolls, oy) Kommandant L.Z. 35

Hptm. Hans Wilhelm Konrad Masius. See:

www.luftschiff.krug77.de/3_luftschiffer/3_ls.htm

R.

[Guest Rick Research]

Agggggggghhhhhhh! I was "done" with that class!

No, see what an international effort this actually is? Thanks Rick!

Pieces of the "jigsaw puzzle" are strewn around all over, and everybody has different pieces.

Well, except for Lippe-Detmold, the paragons of perfection, logic, sense and detail. My rolls heroes, those guys!

Up to #468 on the gold medals this year.

[Rick]

Sorry about that Just trying to make him more 'complete'. R.

[Guest Rick Research]

Z'OK... not printed yet (since am still 200 or so to go Gold Medals X from through with this state).

Here are the Ernestine Knight 2nd Xs with no first names for aviation. Neal couldn't find these either, and he missed the probably unfindable Hofmann because of the way THAT was entered:

Blumenbach, Oberleutnant 14.12.14 from Feldart Rgt 27 in Flieger Abteilung 9

Hofmann, Leutnant 3.2.15 "Telegraph Bn 2 now in Flieger Bn..." (illegible, REALLY illegible)

Sch?ller (may be "Schoeller") Leutnant 5.1.15 Feld Flieger Abteilung 4

Siber Oberleutnant specified as pilot 24.12.14 in Feld Flieger Abteilung 37

Sopp Leutnant 24.12.14 specified as pilot in Feld Flieger Abteilung 37 too. He went back into the infantry (was from Inf Rgt 56) where he died of wounds in 1918 but... still no first name.

Zauner, Leutnant Feld Flieger Abteilung 4 5.1.15. His name also appears as "Zanner" on some of the multiple rolls but was clearly Zauner and transcribed incorrectly by THEM, BACK THEN. (Even THEY couldn't read each other's scribbles!!!!)

The Verdienstkreuz X flyers are all Fully Named. (NOW, anyway )

Am still working through the Gold Medal X winners.

A good number of airship folks on these rolls. Rick

[Rick]

The only one I know FOR SURE is Ltn. Arthur Schoeller. Unit and date match.

A possible is Oblt. Hans-Joachim Siber. but I am not confident enough for you to engrave it in concrete.

Blumenbach I have, but also without first name. Hoffmann - too many.

Sopp and Zauner are new (which is why I am looking forward to the fruits of your research). R.

Edited September 24, 2006 by Rick

[Guest Rick Research]

Rick. At least now the airship recipients will be added to their winged aviation comrades.

[Rick]

Rick. At least now the airship recipients will be added to their winged aviation comrades.

Good deal R.

[Stogieman]

BTW... I've seen what he's working from here. We're talking a serious labor of love folks. it's pretty amazing information, but useless to most of us in its' original form. When he's done... think priceless...

[Guest Rick Research]

I have ... just... "finished" the Coburg Gold Medals X. "Just" have to type over all the corrections and additions, give it another go for typos, then off it will go to Daniel with all the 1914-18 X and "Year Dates" grades from Grand Cross down to Gold Medal, and including the Carl Eduard wartime medals.

What a slog! None of the rolls match up with each other, each having been kept by different people in different places for different reasons and with different "systems." I shudder to think what orthographic mayhem was caused with the MANY Bulgarian names.

Off the 1914-18 topic, but one oddity of having rolls from roughly 1911 on: there were quite a number of VERY late awards of the Medals with Swords from Saxe-Meiningen SPECIFIED as for Southwest Africa 1904-06 or China 1900-01-- as late as 1914-- with only the belated recipients' then-current civilian status. When I eventually GET to Meiningen I'll probably have to leave them off, since I have no rolls before 1911.

Another UNEXPECTED discovery was a number of "peacetime" awards-- no swords OR wartime year dates-- which continued to be made in all grades to military recipients. Personally, I don't see how or why ONE rear area Ersatz Battalion member or Bezirkskommando NCO was "entitled" to swords and another was not. Perhaps the swords recipients were recuperating from frontline wounds, while the "pre-war" version award recipients had never left home. Who knows?

But since there is no way to distinguish a 1917 "peacetime" award from one from... 1899, or 1911, or .... those were left aside as well.

After several days to recuperate, I will do Lippe-Detmold's awards "mit X" from 1900-1918. I WILL include the colonial ones with the World War ones because there are so few of all of them, combined. These will end up in an eventual "miscellaneous" volume, probably.

Next Major Chore:

Sachsen-Weimar and its running pages with nothing but the YEAR of award.

[Blitz]

Working on a book is hard labour and quite impossible without true passion for knowledge. Rick has that passion and we are VERY fortunate to have him with us.

[webr55]

I'm not sure whether this question has come up before: Has anyone ever tried to find out whether there are any rolls for German officers who received the ?M3K? Archives in Vienna should have survived intact, I would assume.

[David M]

One of us had the idea of setting up a fixed thread listing the existing rolls and the several projects we are working on.

Why not start with each and every single one project listing and summarizing every once in a while, I think alphabeticlly on countryname would be a good idea?

I just added from the top of my head, and added the name of the people working on them....

Bremen (Hanseatenstadt): Hanseatic Cross

Hamburg (Hanseatenstadt): Hanseatic cross

Hessen (Kurf?rstentum): House Order of the Golden Lion --> David M

Hessen (Kurf?rstentum): Order of William --> David M

L?beck (Hanseatenstadt): Hanseatic Cross

Reuss ?.L. (F?rstentum): Honor Cross

Reuss j.L. (F?rstentum): Honor Cross

I?d see keep them coming

David

Edited March 23, 2007 by David M

[webr55]

• Anhalt
  • ?
• Baden
  • KFO/BZL: published, but incomplete
• Bayern
  • MMJO: published
  • MVO/MVK: published, but incomplete
• Braunschweig:
  • BrH/BrEAK: apparently not in archive
• Bremen
  • Hanseatenkreuz: exist in archive, not yet published
• Hamburg
  • Hanseatenkreuz: exist in archive, not yet published
• Hessen-Darmstadt
  • HPO/HT: destroyed in the war?
• Hessen (Kurfürstentum):
  • House Order of the Golden Lion --> David M
  • Order of William --> David M
• Hohenzollern
  • being published
• Lippe-Detmold
  • LDH: being published
• Lübeck
  • Hanseatenkreuz: exist in archive, not yet published
• Mecklenburg-Schwerin
  • exist in archive, not yet published
• Mecklenburg-Strelitz
  • found, but too chaotic to be useful
• Oldenburg
  • ?
• Preußen
  • PLM/HHOX: published-- HHOX being worked on for a new edition
• Reuß ä.L. und j.L.
  • exist in archive, not yet published
• Sachsen
  • SH/SV: published
  • SA: published, but rolls not complete
• Sachsen-Altenburg
  • HSH: published, supplements being published
• Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha
  • HSH: being published
  • Carl Eduard War Cross: being published
  • Carl Eduard Medals: being published
• Sachsen-Meiningen
  • HSH: being published, but incomplete
  • War Merit Cross: being published
• Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach
  • WF: being published, but incomplete
  • Wilhelm Ernst War Cros: being published, but incomplete
• Schaumburg-Lippe
  • House Order * Decorations for Arts & Sciences: being published
• Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt und Schwarzburg-Sondershausen
  • exist in archive, not yet published
• Waldeck
  • Merit Cross 1914-18: published-- revised 2nd edition being re-published
• Württemberg
  • WKO/MVO/WF, WKrz, VK: being published

• Austria
  • Iron Crown: ?
  • ÖMK: ?

Just meant as a start, waiting for your corrections/updates.

Regards

Chris

Edited November 13, 2017 by webr55

[eitze]

• Waldeck
• published

Regards

Chris

Hello Chris,

also a roll of the civil awards ???

I only know and have the E. Roth military roll for 1914-18.

Any help appreciated !!

greetings

eitze