Uncategorised Pictures of my grandfather...

[webr55]

Luftwaffe Rules said:

Its great you have all of these things of his! Do you have any of his medals or gorgets? Great items! All the best, Jon

Thanks, but no medals or other items survived the war. I only know what he was awarded from close-ups of his ribbon bar. As far as I know, he kept most decorations in his house which was burnt down in 1945.

However, I have made some efforts to reconstruct his medal bar. He probably never had one originally, because there are no photos showing it. I know some might find this reconstruction questionable, but I don't intend to ever sell it, it's just for my display.

So here it is, shown for the first time (the awards are originals, ribbons are new):

Edited November 13, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

Here is the back. It was mounted by LHD Shop, and they did a very good job. Feel free to leave any comments!

Edited November 13, 2017 by webr55

[Blitz]

I have been reconstructing my grandfathers medallbar, so I can appreciate what you've done. Good job and thank you for sharing your family's past!

[James Clark]

The DRK award should come after the Olympia-Erinnerungsmedaille (as it does on the ribbon bar in the photos), but aside from that the quality of this reconstruction pretty much puts me off paying a premium for medal bars - I can't see how this can be distinguished from a wartime mount.

[webr55]

James Clark said:

The DRK award should come after the Olympia-Erinnerungsmedaille (as it does on the ribbon bar in the photos), but aside from that the quality of this reconstruction pretty much puts me off paying a premium for medal bars - I can't see how this can be distinguished from a wartime mount.

Good point. I didn't show you this late-war photo. Here, he's wearing the Olympic medal in last place. That's the way he wore it in the end, so that's why I had them mounted in this order.

Edited November 13, 2017 by webr55

[webr55]

This mount can be spotted easily as a post-war one because of the new ribbons. But if I had had the outfitter use old ribbons, I indeed doubt that the reconstruction could have been identified as such.

BTW, thanks Antti!

[James Clark]

Good point. I didn't show you this late-war photo. Here, he's wearing the Olympic medal in last place. That's the way he wore it in the end, so that's why I had them mounted in this order.

That's interesting. This precedence would be correct for a Volkspflege award, which by the time this photograph was taken had replaced the DRK awards.

Edited September 2, 2007 by James Clark

[webr55]

That's interesting. This precedence would be correct for a Volkspflege award, which by the time this photograph was taken had replaced the DRK awards.

Correct, and I first thought this must be the Volkspflege medal. However, the first time the DRK ribbon shows up is on the picture in posts #3 and 4. And that picture was taken between May and August 1939, while the Volkspflege awards were first awarded in December 1939.

My own explanation is that there was some confusion regarding the status of these awards. Probably, with the introduction of the Volkspflege awards, the wearers of the earlier awards also thought that their medals were now raised from organizational to national level.

Edited September 2, 2007 by webr55

[Guest Rick Research]

Yes, and despite regulations, occasionally bars with BOTH the Red Cross Medal and Volkspflege Medal are seen together.

Meanwhile, the Olympics Medal floated around all over, sometime being found BEFORE the "flowers campaigns" medal (both chronologically and as a MERIT award it could logically have been worn there) or AFTER them as less important.

These are awards where no regulations were uniformly followed.... by anybody! All that keeps them from being more confusing is that very few people actually seem to have had more than one of them to mis-place!