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    -Big- bar...and the price was right (free)


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    The reverse side...with a weird brown/olive colored backing. The backing material doesn't look like any material I've seen before so it's possible the bar might be fake, or...the backing might have been replaced at one time. I'm not certain if this one is good or someone has dinked with it.

    Les

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    Guest Rick Research

    That is a slightly strange cloth backing... but no problem. This bar was made by Godet in Berlin-- their freaky Austrian war wreath and metal backing are distinctive.

    A peacetime Baden OZL, SWA etc MAY be traceable. Back when the thunder and lightning now overhead passes me by.

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    Guest Rick Research

    Benno Pflugradt

    Sekonde-Lieutenant 14.2.1895 B32

    Oberleutnant 18.10.1904 Tt

    Hauptmann 16.6.10 C

    Major 15.10.16 J

    Oberstleutnant 1.6.21 #1

    Oberst 1.2.26 #2

    Afraid I lose him after 1928--

    In Infantry Regiment 25 until between 1907-12, having been Regimental Adjutant. He never served in Southwest Africa-- that is a STEEL medal: he was Regimental Adjutant and presumably got it for merit in sending the expedition off. In 1912 he was Adjutant of the 30th Infantry Brigade, 15th Division, and had picked up that peacetime BZ3b in third from last place. Switched to Infantry Regiment 29 in 1913, commanding 3rd Company IR 29 in 1914.

    Ended the war as commander of Hessian Infantry Regiment 116. Perhaps Glenn or Bernhard can tell you more.

    Here he is in 1924, Chief Adjutant of the Reichswehr Minister, page 1:

    [attachmentid=11078]

    He-- and this ribbon bar-- may be "spottable" in period Staff Entourages

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    Guest Rick Research

    Oh yeah... those awards.

    [attachmentid=11083]

    PERFECT illustrative example, since in 1924 his Rank List entry FAILS to show his XXV Years service cross, held since 1920... but by 1928 has corrected that. The ribbon bar dates 1920+ from that XXV being on there because Prussian long service awards were suspended during the war.

    Bavarian Military Merit Order 4X in sixth place awarded 28 May 1915. Hohenzollern House Order 3X gazetted 15.12.17

    and oh, yeah, that funny little emblem in front of all his stuff?

    1924 =

    [attachmentid=11079]

    1928=

    [attachmentid=11080]

    That would be the POUR LE MERITE, awarded on 3 November 1918.

    Festivation may now commence. cheers.gif

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    Oh yeah... those awards.

    <snip>

    and oh, yeah, that funny little emblem in front of all his stuff?

    <snip>

    That would be the POUR LE MERITE, awarded on 3 November 1918.

    Festivation may now commence.  cheers.gif

    Rick....I never expected a PLM recipient, or someone who held a high ranking position in the post war military bureaucracy! Wow....this goes to show me I'd better start paying more attention to ribbon bars. I "owe" you one, or two....

    javascript:emoticon(':cheers:')

    smilie

    My buddy doesn't collect Imperial German items, and this was part of a miscellaneous bunch of items in a box of unrelated items he bought (to get a set of wings). There's no way to determine where it came from at this time.

    Pflugradt received his PlM for defensive operations againt French and US forces in the first half of September 1918 (St Mihiel salient ?). If he fell off your radar after 1928, there's a chance his military records might have survived. If nothing else, his position as Chief Adjutant to a government minister should have left a postwar paper trail that can might be traced. Perhaps the Bundesarchiv might have something on him. He may have died before WWII if his name doesn't appear in the TR army lists.

    Rick, again thanks for putting a name to the ribbon bar, and doing the hard part. Now tracking down some of the other details of his life are up to me! What you did find out, was impressive!

    Vielen Dankbar!

    Les

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    Rick, Les,

    some additional information on Herr Pflugradt:

    Benno Wilhlem Waldemar Pflugradt, born 24 July 1877 at Greifswald in Pomerania, died 10 Nov 1940.

    Son of Generalmajor z.D. Emil Pflugradt and Hildegard Pflugradt (von Lilienthal)

    Educated in his parents' house and at the Gymnasium Greifswald and Marburg. Attended the Cadet Schools at Oranienstein and Gro?-Lichterfelde. As an Abiturient he graduated from Gro?-Lichterfelde as a Portep?e F?hnrich on 14 February 1895 and was commissioned into I.R. 25 as a Sekonde-Lieutenant on the 27 January 1896 with seniority backdated to his original graduation date (14.2.95)

    4 Jun - 1 Jul 99: Attached to Pionier-Bataillon 14

    1 Oct 99 - 31 May 03: Adjutant III./I.R. 25

    1 Jun 03 - 31 Oct 07: Regimental Adjutant I.R. 25

    22 Apr - 26 May 08: Attached to Infantry School of Musketry

    16 Jun 10: Adjutant of the 30. Infanterie-Brigade

    27 Jan 13: Assigned to I.R. 29 as a company commander

    Commanded I.R. 116 from 3 Nov 18 - 22 Jan 19

    Commanded J?ger-Bataillon Nr. 10 from 1 Mar 1919 to dissolution

    Commanded 17. Infanterie-Regiment from 1 Feb 27 -28 Feb 28

    Regards

    Glenn

    Edited by Glenn J
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    • 7 years later...
    Guest Rick Research

    In the wonderful musical "It's A Small, Small World," this minty gem came to me from Germany in October 1995, but I foolishly sold it in August 1998 (aka The Time Before Internet):

    It did not return to my paws until October 2011, while I was offline.

    And here I've been, since being back for two months, convincing myself it has to have been Pflugradt's circa ? 1916/17 "fashion statement" War Awards Only bar. :whistle:

    Pretty much so, I'd say, since nobody else had the wartime German combination. :catjava:

    Edited by Rick Research
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    Guest Rick Research

    Known awards dates:

    PLM 3 November 1918

    HOH3X: gazetted 15 December 1917

    BMV4X 28.05.15

    WF3aX: 01.11.14 as Hauptann on Staff of Armee-Oberkommando 5

    BrK: ? Dave

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    Guest Rick Research

    It's actually kind of spooky, isn't it? Once, all these little bits and pieces of one person's life were all together... then war and time and disinterest scattered those fragments across the globe... and yet how many times DO they end up back "together" here? :o

    Kind of like Chronic Historesis, or something. :speechless1:

    So... if the center of the universe is HERE... the center of here is.... my Epson scanner. :sleep: All things return to Gaea-Epson. :catjava:

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