Heer Rank vs. Medals - Plausibility

[DonC]

Dear All -

I am considering a piped Artillery Major's tunic as a purchase. Condition seems very nice and there are no sirens going off on it. The one thing that nags me is that it only has two loops for a medal/ribbon bar and a single fitting for a screw-back badge, most probably an EK. It has the ribbons for the 1939 EKII and the Ostfront Medaille through the button hole.

I would assume a Major would have at least one other set of loops for a badge or a loop or two more for a longer ribbon bar - it looks like it will only hold a two-place medal bar or maybe a three ribbon bar set.

Am I being paranoid?

Don

[Simon Orchard]

I can think of plenty of circumstances whereby and artillery major hadn't picked up long service or flower war medals, hadn't been wounded or qualified for a GAB.

So in answer to your question....yes

[Guest Rick Research]

Your standard field artillery officer never earned an assault badge, since he was never in frontline combat-- he was BEHIND the front, blasting away at the enemy from behind his own infantry lines.

I would expect a wartime Major to have earned at the very least a 4 years service medal before the war as an absolute minimum (remember, awards suspended once the war started!) but even the wearers of buttonhole ribbons usually had loops for those as a complete ribbon bar (and often incorrectly wore BOTH versions simultaneously). An average Major (and a single pinbacked award Major would certainly have been "average") should have had a 12 and 4... one million Sudeten medals were handed out... add a couple of wartime ribbons...

personally, I would expect a MINIMUM of 4 ribbons on a ribbon bar for any wartime Major.

I'd say almost inevitably what you have is a Lieutenant's uniform that some has "improved" by changing shoulder boards.

[Simon Orchard]

Oh come on Rick, an EKI for an artillery officer isn't quite sitting behind a desk for the duration. Recruit to major from 38 to 45 wasn't exactly unheard of and i can't believe was sole the preserve of the RKT w?nderkind. In fact, theorectically speaking the guy could be an RKT with that set up.

[DonC]

I guess that is what is eating at me - I would have felt a great deal better about the tunic if it even had three ribbon/medal bar loops, but I have always associated the minimum "two looper" with a junior officer. It's not inconceivable that this was a Johann-come-lately who made Major through battlefield/administrative merit by '41 or '42 and had the tunic tailored, but then I would hope to see at least one more set of badge loops.

Thanks, folks, for the input!

Don

[Guest Rick Research]

Ahhhh, a Desk Jockey would have had the ultra rare KVK1X -screwback!!!

All I meant was that a field artillery gunner would not normally have had an ASSAULT badge. The lack of pinback awards (lucky: no wounds, non-jock: no sports badge) doesn't bother me on an artillery tunic the way it would for infantry, for instance.

Promotion practice being what it was, in those excpetional cases of 36 year old Generals etc I would expect to see a set of German Cross loops, Close Combat Bars etc-- as the REAL Super Nazis got by the time most of them went out in a blaze of suicidal valor. None there = Average Johann. A.J. by 1944 was 36-39 and so had 17-20 years in by 1944. Most Majors at the beginning of the war were in their early 40s and were WW1 veterans. Most Majors by war's end were in their late 30s. As a field artillery officer-- not General Staff, not festooned with bravery awards, a potential "two ribbons" 1944 Major would have been a Stransky under-achiever.

Here is an average 1940 Artillery Major, a career interwars officer:

[attachmentid=13658]

HE only made it to Oberst in 30 years, even though he DID end up as a German Cross in Gold recipient.

[Simon Orchard]

I guess the hole could also have been for a screwback GAB...

iirc, a certain German dealer has or had a GJ stabsfeldwebel tunic for sale, a friend of mine who collects uniforms asked me what i thought (me, who knows zip about uniforms). So i reminded him that i'm not the person to ask but that i thought the complete lack of a single award loop for a veteran career soldier who's made it all the way to the top of the NCO rank structure was more than a little odd.

[DonC]

I would agree, unless the tunic was flat out stone mint - ie, some happy go lucky GI tosses a trash can through a tailor's shop window in '45 and walks out with one that was never worn/completed. I've had responses running the gamut form "stay away" to "no problem" on the Arty tunic - ultimately, money will probably play the deciding role - I'd be OK taking a risk if the price was right (ie, "bargain") , but I would not want to drop top dollar on it.

Don

Edited October 21, 2005 by DonC

[byf]

It sounds like a pretty nice tunic. How many awards could he have been awarded? He has EK2 and Russian Front bibbons, 1 screw-back something, and a 3 ribbon bar. That is not bad. He was lucky, no wound badge. Also, some awards were put in for but never recieved. My friend Albert was at Stalingrad, flying the supplys in and the wounded out. He was awarded the Russian Front, Airgunner/Flight Engineer Badge, and Silver Wound Badge. He was put in for the EK2 but he was captured by the Russians before it was awarded to him.

So to me it seems the number of awards on the tunic is ok, but I am no expert. Just my 2 Phennigs.

byf