Which unit?

[Tony J]

Hi guys,

I recently picked up a Prussian EMs buckle that is unit marked 5. G. R. 2. C. II on the bottom.

Garde or Grenadier? What would the 2. C. II stand for?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Tony

[Chip]

Tony,

It would be grenadier regiment. I believe it's 2.Companie (yes, with a "C") II = Garniture number.

Chip

[Tony J]

Chip,

Now I'm really confused.

Jeff Noll's book 'The Imperial German Regimental Markings" is my only reference source at the moment. In the Regimental Markings Directory, of the four plain G. markings shown three refer to it as being related to Garde and one to Grenadier. Further on when G.R is listed the ratio remains similar at 3 to 1 Garde to Grenadier. When the script R of a reserve regiment is thrown into the mix the figures get really skewded toward the G being Garde instead of Grenadier by a ratio of 16 to 1. That's why I'm confused.

So the 5 would be the Regiment instead of the company? I'm still thrown for a loop about the two Roman numeral II's being the garniture number. I have weapons that are unit marked and the weapon numbers are arabic style.

Seems that the mystery remains.....................

I appreciate your thoughts.

All the best,

Tony

[Chip]

Tony,

Well, Jeff's book is an excellent reference, but you must remember that these rules are for marking weapons. Weapons were not marked with Garniture numbers as clothing items were. First of all, nearly all weapons were marked during the prewar period. Most buckles, on the other hand, were not marked (with the exception of the saxon units). I can count on my fingers the number of unit marked Prussian belt buckles that I have seen over the past 46 years of collecting.

There is no such thing as a Garde infantry regiment in the rolls of unit names. They all had something else in their name to differentiate them from other Garde regiments, like, "zu Fu?", "Garde Grenadier", "Garde Fusilier". Individual uniform items had different abbreviations and that is why I think your marking if for the Grenadier Rgt. Nr.5. Can I prove I'm right.....no I can't.

Garniture numbers were Roman numerals, not Arabic numbers. There is noting else that I can think of that this numeral could be. It's not a corps or battalion number, as neither match the regiment.

I have seen Garniture numerals on other belt buckles that were unit marked.

Chip

[bob lembke]

Tony and Chip;

I know nothing about unit markings, but sheer ignorance has never kept me from posting.

I picked up a Prussian Rangliste that conveniently was sitting by me, and it suggests that it is a coin-toss to pick between the two 5th Guards Infantry Regiments and the 5th Infantry Regiment. There was a 5. Garde=Regiment zu Fu?, and additionally a Garde=Grenadier=Regiment Nr. 5; both were based in Spandau, just to the west of Berlin proper, and together formed the 5. Garde=Infanterie=Brigade, the latter formation was probably broken up during the course of the war. If this was not confusing enough, there was also a Grenadier=Regiment Koenig Friedrich I. (4. Ostpreussisches) Nr.5, based in Danzig. All three of these regiments were very old and elite and also very Prussian. Chip is correct that "C." as well as "K." or "Komp." could be used for "Company". I assume that this is is an archaic form from the French, just like how Prussian second lieutenants were "Premier Lieutenant" (I am too lazy and it is too late to actually check this spelling, but it is probably OK) till the mid-1890s, when the rank was referred to as "Oberleutnant". (It was Bismark, I believe, who convinced the Prussian Foreign Ministry to start writing their internal correspondence in German, rather than French.) The use of "C" for Kompagnie would have been more likely in an "old" regiment, I suspect, or might suggest an older date for the inscription.

Can I ask the well-informed Chip a couple of questions? Can you say a few words about the term Garniture as it applies to marked clothing and equipment? Aside from the common use of the term, I am not familiar with this, and I assume that others may suffer the same handicap. Secondly, how do you insert the special German characters, like the "ss" above (I stole your character for Fuss above), or an Uemlaut? I gather that there is a way to produce special characters, but I have never seen a table of the characters and the keyboard manipulations needed to insert them into text.

Finally, I am made nervous about the way that a common article could be made more valuable by a few characters scratched or punched into it, just like I am wary of a few words scrawled on the reverse of a period militaria photo that indicates a very exotic topic and increases the value of the photo. (I am just a suspicious type of guy.) The use of an archaic form like the "C" for company hints at authenticity. I used to collect Roman coins; one I have has interesting (and obscene) graffiti scratched into it; when was that done, 1700 years ago, or a week before I bought it? I can remember being in an Orthodox church on the Jugoslav coast with a bookish Croatian friend in 1971; a mosaic had something like "Kilroy was here, March 17, 1804" dug into its lower edge in Cyrillic with a knife; I wondered alowd if it was actually from 1804, or a recent joke; my companion pointed out that one of the Cyrillic characters used in the graffiti was dropped from the active alphabet about 1850, suggesting an old date for the inscription, or a rather scholarly graffiti artist, which one hopes would be an oxymoron. Likewise the use of the "C" suggests authenticity.

Bob Lembke

[Tony J]

Chip and Bob,

Good info all.

I'm still not sure of the actual out come but the comments and efforts are surely appreciated.

The actual cost and/or market value is minimal at best compared with other more prestegious collectables. This buckle is more interesting in the fact that it is unit marked. The numbers are stamped in and their form is comsistant with others I have seen on unit marked weapons. I'll see if I can get a picture or two and post it here.

Thanks again.

Tony

[bob lembke]

Tony;

My point is that "5. G. R." could reasonably be used for either of the three regiments that I identified. I don't know beans about unit markings per se, but do read and use German period documents, books, etc. a lot, and am quite familiar with the ways the Germans abbreviated unit designations. Another correct detail is the type of numerals involved. To explain this, let me cite a series of correctly written unit designations. 2. Kompagnie, II. Bataillon, 2. Regiment (more usually Regiment Nr. 2.), II. Infanterie=Brigade, 2. Infanterie=Division, III. Reservekorps (couldn't resist slipping in my grand-father's corps), 5. Armee.

See the pattern? The alternating Roman and Arabic numerals? This added clarity and allowed even starker abbreviations, which the Germans loved. In a source like a history from the Reichsarchiv you can see a unit designation like "2./II.", and, with the right context, you know that this is 2. Kompagnie/II. Bataillon". About 10% of the time an Arabic numeral will be used when a Roman numeral is standard; I don't think that I have ever seen the reverse (e.g., "II. Kompagnie") in reading many hundreds of period sources in German. The very strong abbreviations are often used on maps of battle situations. Also remember the way the capital letter "J" is often used for the capital letter "I", as in "5. J. D." for the 5th Infantry Division.

So a "II. K." marking on something for the 2nd Company is very fishy indeed, like the charioteer with the wristwatch in "Ben Hur".

Above a bit pedantic, but I hope it is useful to some.

Bob Lembke

[Dave Danner]

Tony and Chip;

I know nothing about unit markings, but sheer ignorance has never kept me from posting.

I picked up a Prussian Rangliste that conveniently was sitting by me, and it suggests that it is a coin-toss to pick between the two 5th Guards Infantry Regiments and the 5th Infantry Regiment. There was a 5. Garde=Regiment zu Fu?, and additionally a Garde=Grenadier=Regiment Nr. 5; both were based in Spandau, just to the west of Berlin proper, and together formed the 5. Garde=Infanterie=Brigade, the latter formation was probably broken up during the course of the war. If this was not confusing enough, there was also a Grenadier=Regiment Koenig Friedrich I. (4. Ostpreussisches) Nr.5, based in Danzig. All three of these regiments were very old and elite and also very Prussian. Chip is correct that "C." as well as "K." or "Komp." could be used for "Company". I assume that this is is an archaic form from the French, just like how Prussian second lieutenants were "Premier Lieutenant" (I am too lazy and it is too late to actually check this spelling, but it is probably OK) till the mid-1890s, when the rank was referred to as "Oberleutnant". (It was Bismark, I believe, who convinced the Prussian Foreign Ministry to start writing their internal correspondence in German, rather than French.) The use of "C" for Kompagnie would have been more likely in an "old" regiment, I suspect, or might suggest an older date for the inscription.

Can I ask the well-informed Chip a couple of questions? Can you say a few words about the term Garniture as it applies to marked clothing and equipment? Aside from the common use of the term, I am not familiar with this, and I assume that others may suffer the same handicap. Secondly, how do you insert the special German characters, like the "ss" above (I stole your character for Fuss above), or an Uemlaut? I gather that there is a way to produce special characters, but I have never seen a table of the characters and the keyboard manipulations needed to insert them into text.

Finally, I am made nervous about the way that a common article could be made more valuable by a few characters scratched or punched into it, just like I am wary of a few words scrawled on the reverse of a period militaria photo that indicates a very exotic topic and increases the value of the photo. (I am just a suspicious type of guy.) The use of an archaic form like the "C" for company hints at authenticity. I used to collect Roman coins; one I have has interesting (and obscene) graffiti scratched into it; when was that done, 1700 years ago, or a week before I bought it? I can remember being in an Orthodox church on the Jugoslav coast with a bookish Croatian friend in 1971; a mosaic had something like "Kilroy was here, March 17, 1804" dug into its lower edge in Cyrillic with a knife; I wondered alowd if it was actually from 1804, or a recent joke; my companion pointed out that one of the Cyrillic characters used in the graffiti was dropped from the active alphabet about 1850, suggesting an old date for the inscription, or a rather scholarly graffiti artist, which one hopes would be an oxymoron. Likewise the use of the "C" suggests authenticity.

Bob Lembke

For what it's worth (a bit tangential), the 5.Garde-Infanterie-Brigade wasn't broken up. When most divisions began to be triangularized (from 2 brigade/2 regiments each to 1 brigade/3 regiments) in early 1915, the 3.Garde-Infanterie-Division lost the 5.Garde-Infanterie-Brigade to the newly formed 4.Garde-Infanterie-Division. Both 5.Garde-Regiment zu Fu? and Garde-Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 5 stayed with their brigade in the new division throughout the war. They were joined by Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 93 (despite having the same number as the regular Anhaltisches Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 93, this was not an Anhalt unit, but a Garde reserve unit; Anhalt's reserve infantry unit was III./RIR 36).

? = ? 

? = ?

? = ?

? = ?

? = ?

? = ?

? = ?

? = ?

etc.

See: http://www.bnl.gov/itd/web/ForeignLanguageCharacters.asp

But it's often easier to just copy and paste.

[Chip]

Bob,

Cutting and pasting are OK if you want to use the umlaut letters, but I prefer to use ASCII text. It is an alternate set of characters that can be used from any computer and the ASCII code is universal and can be read by any other computer. To acquire the needed letter, you just hold down the Alt key and put in the appropriate code. For instance, if you hold down the Alt ket while typing 0252, when you let up you get ?, code 0228 = ?, 0246 = ?, 0223 = ?, etc. If you do a search for ASCII codes you can, with a little searching, find a key that would give you just about anything you would want. These few letters that I have given are what I use 90% of the time. I have them memorized, so it takes only a second to insert them. The capital versions of these letters are also available and have their own codes.

Garniture numerals (Roman numeral 1's) were used by the military as a rating system to mark clothing articles as to their condition and thus, wear status. For instance, a Garniture marking of "I" meant that the article was in "like new" condition and was suitable for dress or church service wear. The thrifty German military reissued garments until they were worn out or unservicable. Each time the piece was reissued, it would be inspected and a new rating assessed. There were at least five levels of condition and every time the piece was downgraded, another "I" woud be added. So, it would be conceivable to find an article with a "IIIII" marking or any number of "I"s up to five. This coding was supplanted by a new "abbreviation" type code in 1916.

Chip

Edited May 3, 2007 by Chip

[bob lembke]

Chip;

Many thanks for the two useful nuggets of information. Since I also mostly need the Uemlauts (see, I haven't remembered the codes yet), I will follow your lead. But Dave's lead will also be useful also. I write a fair amount of French, and am currently translating the diary of an Italian flame thrower officer, so I sometimes need a variety of special characters.

My father told me when he first joined the army (sworn in by Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 3 "von Rauch" of "the Brandenburgers" in early 1915) his issue boots were older than he was. The hob-nails and heel horse-shoe took most of the wear, but he said that with age the nail-holes opened up and the hob-nails loosened and became a problem. I have the lengthy correspondence between my father and grand-father; the latter, always practical, and having seen the results of reckless bayonet charges in Belgium, wanted father to especially not join the infantry, but join the pioneers, where "you will learn something useful"; further, to be trained within the III. Armeekorps, and then get transferred to Reserve=Pionier=Bataillon Nr. 3 of my grand-father's army corps, where, as he wrote: "I know all the officers, and have trained most of them." G-f was a Feuerwerk=Offizier (Explosives Officer), and probably had trained the pioneer officers in the use of explosives. Although he had other duties (He was the Id in the corps' Generalkommando) he was sometimes detailed for special blasting jobs; he once wrote about having a major blast to set up, 1200 kg. of explosives near the Russian lines, and being a bit nervous handling so much explosives close to the Russians. He reported that the physical conditions in Russia were nightmarish (He wrote that: "You don't have to lie down; you merely have to look at a bed, and you are covered in lice.", and he contracted malaria in 1915.

I venture into the personal, but I think that some will find this sort of detail interesting. I fortunately have a lot of family Feldpost and oral history, which has surprisingly proved exceptionally accurate.

Bob Lembke

[Chip]

Bob,

I have been reading your posts on various forums for the past few years and feel like have a bit of a grasp on the type of soldier you father was. I recently read "Education before Verdun" by Arnold Zweig. The book is a contemporary of "All Quiet on the Western Front" and quite famous in its own right. One of the main characters is a "Sapper" officer and though he is a Bavarian, he strikes me as the same sort of soldier your father seems to have been. If you have not read it (it was translated into English in the 1930s), I highly recommend it. This Leutnant had been wounded several times and had come to grips with the war and actually may have "enjoyed" his part, as so many others who, when the war ended, had been so seduced by it that they had a hard time adjusting to civilian life and continued to fight in a Freikorps unit. It's a great book.

Chip

Edited May 4, 2007 by Chip

[bob lembke]

Hi, Chip!

I think that I have "Education before Verdun" by Arnold Zweig, in German, on my shelf of WW I fiction, which is quite small. I have become so obsessed with my studies of the war, and writing, that I rarely read fiction anymore, and little on things not related to the war, and even rarely read secondary sources on the war. In my particular interest, flame throwers, flame troops, and their role in the war, almost everything in the secondary sources is bunk, IMHO. I think I poked thru the Zweig book when I bought it. I will be swept with guilt if I sit down and read it from cover to cover.

My father hated Remarque and his "All Quiet on the Western Front", as "defeatist", as he put it. He traveled to Berlin and joined a Freikorps to kill some sailors after an armed Red sailors' patrol set upon him in the streets of Hamburg in December 1918 while visiting his mother and stripped him of his greatcoat and boots at gunpoint. He was quite quick-tempered, even thuggish, and had been a storm-trooper for 2 1/2 years, and he was very angry. He was able to take part in the flame thrower attack on the Vorwarts building in January 1919, and particpated in shooting in the forehead 26 sailors of the Peoples' Naval Division who were among the 300 men taken in the attack. So he got to kill his sailors. He told me many times that the war was the high point of his life, he was one of that 2-3% that loved the war, but he did not enjoy the civil war that much.

Bob Lembke

[Chip]

In my particular interest, flame throwers, flame troops, and their role in the war, almost everything in the secondary sources is bunk, IMHO.

Bob,

Speaking of Flammenwerfer, it seems that a new book on the subject will be released this Fall by Schiffer. Is the author your former collaborator? I think he contacted me once for information on uniforms and personal equipment.

Chip

[bob lembke]

Hi, Chip!

I have heard rumors that Schiffer will publish a book on German flame thrower (FW) troops this year, and if true I cannot think of anyone else who might be the author, except an individual with whom I collaborated with for a couple of years. I only know of one other American who knows a lot about WW I FW, and I occasionally correspond with this third person, and he recently gave me some very rare FW materials, so I doubt that this third party (someone whose name would be instantly recognizable, with great respect) will be the author. (The above, of course, assumes that the supposed author of the rumored work is an American.)

I think that I have seen you post about this possible book publication; I can not recall if I have heard this from others. One account suggested a title. I may contact you privately, there might be touchy issues here.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

The above post was badly expressed. (It is 3:45 AM here on the East Coast, and I have not slept yet.) Several Americans that I know are knowledgable about FW, and have exchanged material and guidance with me, and have been of significant assistance. One of them quite possibly knows a bit more than the others, and also is more prone to publish his work (and has produced a classic in the process), and this gentlemen was the "third party" that I referred to. This mention is not intended to minimize the knowledge of others, nor the help that they have extended to me.

Bob Lembke