Group to a medic with 5.FJD

[PKeating]

You don't see these very often. Walter Barth and his mates must have able to hear the Allied guns as they completed their jump course at Dreux, to the west of Paris, in July 1944.

There was another type of document for the Parachutists Badge in cloth, incorporating a counterfold - in other words, a folded A4 sheet - with an artist's portrait of the F?hrer. I am reliably informed that these were carefully removed by recipients and put to the appropriate use during morning ablutions. This is the simple A5 document.

PK

[PKeating]

Walter Barth was born on 21.1.1920. He did very well at school and was apprenticed at fourteen. Prior to joining the Fallschirmj?ger, he served with a heavy Flak unit in various places, including France. He was stationed at Le Bourget aerodrome on the north-western outskirts of Paris at one point. Here is a fresh-faced Walter with some of his mates.

PK

[PKeating]

And here is how Walter Barth looked on 20.7.1944, after less than two weeks in Normandy with Fallschirm-Sanit?ts-Abt 5, where the Fallschirmsch?tzenschein (Parachutist Licence) was issued to him. Note the padded cloth badge he received in Dreux on 5.7.1944.

[PKeating]

The very, very rare late war cardboard FSS issued to Walter Barth, who would have been one of the last para-trained Fallschirmj?ger of WW2. By late July 1944, parachute training had been indefinitely suspended at all the schools in France (obviously!), Germany and Hungary. Walter Barth probably lost his soldbuch and other documents during the retreat from France as his FSS appears to have served as an ID document on which his promotion to Stabsgefreiter in January 1945 was recorded. Note also the entry for July 1945, closing off the document. This was when Barth and his surviving comrades from the rebuilt 5.FJD went into the bag.

PK

[PKeating]

Fallschirm-Sanit?ts-Abteilung 5 was part of 5. Fallschirmj?ger-Division, formed in Reims in March and April 1943 under the command of Generalleutnant Gustav Wilke, who would command the division until September 1944. 5. FJD was formed with III./FJR3, III./FJR4, the Fallschirm-Lehr-Bataillon as cadre and fresh recruits from various branches of the Luftwaffe, like Walter Barth.

Finishing his parachute training at Dreux early in July 1944, it is reasonable to presume that Walter Barth transferred from the Flak at least six months previously so he would have been at Reims and then, perhaps, briefly in Brittany, the division having been posted to the Rennes area in May 1944, before he went to Fallschirmschule 1. As FJ historians and students know, the division was far from combat-ready on 6.6.1944 but was thrown into the fighting all the same, suffering very heavy losses. Look again at Walter Barth's face and compare this prematurely aged 24 year old to the smiling youngster with his mates in the Flak-Artillerie.

Walter Barth survived Normandy and the retreat and was evidently with 5. FJD when it reformed around Amsterdam and The Hague in October and November 1944. The division fought in the Ardennes, the Harz Mountains and the Ruhr Pocket. The majority of the division surrendered at the N?rnburgring in March 1945, after the death of the divisional commander Ludwig Heilmann, who had taken over from Wilke in September 1944. The remaining Fallschirmj?ger of 5.FJD fought on under their new, nominal commander, Oberst Gr?schke before surrendering in the Ruhrkessel, with remaining elements going into the bag as the Allies rolled through the Harz Mountains.

Edited April 6, 2007 by PKeating

[PKeating]

He was just forty-four years old when he died.

[PKeating]

There are about sixty photos with his papers, mostly related to his Flak-Artillerie service. The only FJ-related photo is of an NCO with whom he served. He and his comrades clearly had neither the time nor inclination to take snapshots during and after the Normandy battles. There are some rather touching family photos, showing uncles and cousins in uniform, as well as BDM photos and an interesting Marine-HJ portrait from 1934. Anyway, there you have it: the life and death of a Son of the Fatherland.

[Paul R]

There are about sixty photos with his papers, mostly related to his Flak-Artillerie service. The only FJ-related photo is of an NCO with whom he served. He and his comrades clearly had neither the time nor inclination to take snapshots during and after the Normandy battles. There are some rather touching family photos, showing uncles and cousins in uniform, as well as BDM photos and an interesting Marine-HJ portrait from 1934. Anyway, there you have it: the life and death of a Son of the Fatherland.

Another stellar and sobering grouping, Prosper!! To think that he was one of millions who did not make it.

[PKeating]

He survived the war but died relatively young. Here's an interesting little chit charting his vaccinations as a PoW. So at one point, Walter Barth seems to have been a guest of the French. There again, perhaps he and his fellow Prisoners of War were merely taken to a French camp for their vaccinations. The Ricketts jab is quite telling, isn't it? He was discharged in 1948 by the British.

PK

Edited April 6, 2007 by PKeating

[PKeating]

His PoW card, clearly filled out by a British or an American hand.

[Chris Boonzaier]

I should probably blush for having to ask this... but why did he get awarded a cloth badge instead of the regular metal ones?

[PKeating]

Not at all, Chris! Cloth badges were, as we know, unofficial tailorshop items tolerated by the authorities. In the case of the FSA, it was 'officialised' by the authorities as a morale-boosting interim measure to give newly-trained paratroopers something to show for their efforts when they graduated from jump school. Many young paras were being posted to frontline units and getting killed before their award documents and issue badges caught up with them, a process that could take weeks or even months if a unit was moving around a lot. So the OKL introduced these award documents and gave out cloth badges with them. Below is a photograph of another Class of '44 paratrooper, photographed on leave in Germany just after graduating from jump school in Serbia. Walter Hummel is wearing the cloth version of the Luftwaffe badge on his tunic.

PK

[PKeating]

Walter Barth's French vaccinations are interesting given that he appears to have been a prisoner of the British.

[Laurence Strong]

Interesting. Thanks