a very very rare little beauty!

[HeikoGrusdat]

I guess you have never seen this before.... the full size clasps are really hard to find and not often on the market, but this MINIATURE clasp is the one and only I have seen in my whole collecting life!!!!

[HeikoGrusdat]

detail.....

[Guest Rick Research]

You're right.

That IS the only one I've ever seen!

But aside from that... let's see who knows WHY this is Most Particularly Special?

[joemiller]

You're right.

That IS the only one I've ever seen!

But aside from that... let's see who knows WHY this is Most Particularly Special?

I always thought these were special because this type of bar was only given to women who earned the Friedrich August Medal from Saxony. A very very small percentage of the medals with bars were given to women. Sachsens-Ordens reports only 450 in silver and 160 in bronze.

[Guest Rick Research]

You got it!

A woman's ribbon bar-- with a combatant Iron Cross, too.

I've seen exactly ONE photo of a WW1 nurse wearing a ribbon bar:

and I can't tell if those are TWO 15mm ribbons (what it looks like-- something like an EK2 and a Bavarian 20 Years Voluntary Nursing Cross?) or a 25mm ribbon-- but nothing QUITE fits a narrower center stripe than side stripes. This is from such a tiny original that the surface of the paper distorts the image blown up this big. If it were NOT for that slightly smaller center stripe, I'd take this to be a 25mm Saxon Voluntary Nursing Care Cross, exactly what starts off the 4 ribbon bar above.

The full shot will be in my revised and updated Authorized Ribbon Bar Article.

[saschaw]

Nice one, but ...

A woman's ribbon bar-- with a combatant Iron Cross, too.

Maybe just the wrong device on a man's bar? I guess this is much more likely, but still very rare and a nice bar.

I've seen exactly ONE photo of a WW1 nurse wearing a ribbon bar:

Hmm, I used to have a ribbon bar from a woman's group - the crappiest one I've ever seen. Sold it to Ebay, but to someone from the forum, if I remember correctly. Will look for my photos. That one was from Braunschweig ...

[joemiller]

Rick, under what circumstances would a women earn an Iron Cross on a combattants ribbon. Would it be closeness to the front. It just seems like a noncombattant ribbon would be the natural for someone who probably wouldn't be carrying a gun.

[saschaw]

Would it be closeness to the front.

Yes, you gave the right answer to yourself. A doctor, minister, and as well a nurse could have been awarded the Iron Cross for Combattants, if they were on the front, working under enemy's fire.

Edited April 21, 2007 by saschaw

[Kev in Deva]

Interesting point raised but are there any recorded instances of women actually being in the frontline during the time of combat?

If working in the rear areas in Field-hospitals that were shelled does that rate as front-line??

Either British, German, French etc... etc...

Kevin in Deva

[Chris Boonzaier]

My pet theory, and one that has still to be shot down....

If you were serving outside the borders of the reich, and got an iron cross for service... it had a black ribbon.

Hence, a nurse 100km from the front getting an iron cross for service in the field ... got a black ribbon.

Any advances on that theory?

[Chris Boonzaier]

Theory part two....

Doctors, priests, nurses outside the reich... got black ribbons for service in the field.

White ribbons for WW1 were not "non combattant" but rather for "Service in the Reich" except for a few who got black ribbons "for service in the Reich" and Rick can tell you how rare that is.....

[Leutwein]

Hello,

I have some docs of a nurse who served in the colonies! She got later (1934) the "Ehrenkreuz f?r Frontk?mpfer". How is that possible???

Best wishes

Leutwein

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

which colony?

[Leutwein]

Unfortunately there is no entry in which colony she served. But the docs were issue by the "Kommando der Schutztruppen im Reichsministerium". There are two docs for the red cross medals (2nd and 3rd class) and for the FEK.

But I?m thinking that she served in German-Eastafrica or may be in Cameroon.

Best wishes

Leutwein

[saschaw]

Hmm, I used to have a ribbon bar from a woman's group - the crappiest one I've ever seen. Sold it to Ebay, but to someone from the forum, if I remember correctly. Will look for my photos. That one was from Braunschweig ...

Here the pictures, I hope someone wants to see it. It's the ugliest ribbon bar I've ever seen, made from two ribbons cut in two ...

But a woman's one for sure.

[saschaw]

You think the bar's reverse might look better? Why should it?

[Chip]

Well, you would think a nurse might not be a combattant, but given the right circumstances...... Years ago I went to visit an American doctory that served in WWII. He showed me a minature pistol that he took from a German nurse, who was carrying it for self protection. She had been told that if captured by the Americans she would be raped and therefore felt that she needed to carry it.

Chip

[Guest Rick Research]

I do not have NAMES, but there are period references from time to time of nurses being given the "black white" EK. The example that comes to mind is the rout following the collapse of the Palestine-Syrian front in September-October 1918. I've read an account in the Bund der Asienk?mpfer magazines bound set I have (impossible to copy-- would disintegrate if opened and flattened-- it is newsprint paper) where a hospital was overrun, nurses were killed and wounded, and joined the men in a "Rorke's Drift" last stand type action, firing rifles from underneath ambulance wagons. It was that or be slaughtered.

WW1 nurses should have been BEHIND the front, but certainly many occasions arose where the front collapsed like that and they were well behind enemy lines. The nurse whose album I've got was far forward enough at some point to have run out into the road to take this:

I hope she was better with her medical skills than her poor camera focus!!!!

I hadn't considered the "folded in half" option. That makes identification even less likely from the tiny blurry photo I've got to work with.

[David S]

Hey !!!

I've got one of those thingys

On an odd bar to say the least (it is period but 'wrong')

Edited April 22, 2007 by David S

[Guest Rick Research]

...

...

[David S]

Exactly !!

A friend in Dresden sent it to me about five years ago.

Edited April 22, 2007 by David S

[Ulsterman]

there was a BDOS article about female nurses who got the 1914 EK2 a few years back. Gordon can also tell us more as he has made reference to a few and I believe Glenn J. may also know a few names.

A few years ago Bare on eBay sold a split up series of nurses photos from 1940 that had a close up portrait of the "Oberstannbannnurse" -a very stout, hard-looking, matronly woman who reminds me of a Nun I knew at age 9, but who was sporting a 6 (!) medal ribbon bar, INCLUDING an HKx ! I balked at the winning price of $40.

There are a number of references in vets magazines to "ladies who got the frontkampferkreuz".

The records of the Asianbund may still exist, as I have seen references to the Colonial office records extensively in academic literature-includingan article 2 -3 years ago about "Gender and Rhetorical Being in German imperial Afrika"...about German women in the Camroon.

I would also like to know if the DRK archives are all still there. Has anyone ever asked?

Otherwise, how would we know about the mere 8,999 DRK2 medals out there?

[HeikoGrusdat]

........................... funny bar..................... but the second of these minis in some hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Rick,

can't agree fully with the theory with regards the tank picture, this could have been taken anywhere well behind the lines, normally tanks were moved so far forward by train, obviously to a point out of arty and airforce range then driven up to the front.

If she was able to picture tanks at the front why not more shots of the troops etc...etc.. in the album or are there??

Kevin in Deva

Edited April 22, 2007 by Kev in Deva