What INVISIBLE Looks Like

[Guest Rick Research]

If at first you don't succeed, try try TRY again over and over for years. This was the last ribbon bar--from the Evil Ricky Collection -- I ever discussed with my late Imperial guru George Seymour:

I was hunting, fruitlessly, in the 1914 Prussian and Imperial Navy Rank Lists, and George found what looked like a match back in the 1890s for a very strange character named Dr. Kohlstock-- expert on African cattle diseases (who died in China of something nasty during the Boxer Rebellion).

But we were wrong. Subsequent excavations by the Guild Of Research Gnomes in vast unsuspected subterranean archives has uncovered an entire SPECIES of military officials (Beamten) who were not shown in the regular annual Rank Lists

EVER !!!

These literally invisible uniformed civilians had their very own SEGREGATED Rank Lists, for themselves alone.

Daniel has been slaving away at a copy of the 1917 that Glenn found-- and which has made an accurate identification possible after YEARS.

The awards on this Old Style early wartime ribbon bar are

1) Iron Cross 2nd Class on "white black" noncombatant ribbon (3,000 during the war, 10,000 afterwards)

2) Red Eagle Order 4th Class (awarded 27.01.1913 per the final published Prussian Orders List-- which also reveals his missing first name)

3) Crown Order 4th Class (10.10.1910)

4) Saxe-Weimar "GSF3b" Order of the White Falcon-Knight 2nd (pre-1913)

5) 1897 Wilhelm I Centenary Medal

as worn before 1917 (Beamten Rangliste of that year reveals his birth year 1869) by

Eduard Trzeciok, Geheimer Expedierende Sekretär und Kalkulator in the Geheimer Militär Kabinett, Berlin.

His 1918 Prussian Court & State entry reveals that he had also recieved one of those Saxon War Effort Crosses 1917/18:

Ironic, isn't it, that these INVISIBLE military officials continued to be listed in the informative wartime civil service "rank Lists" that Paul found.

Many pieces of the puzzle, slowly, patiently accumulated....

Edited March 11, 2023 by Dave Danner
Fix "ä"

[Guest Rick Research]

Yup. Every year the MILITARY ignored them... they appeared in the CIVIL SERVICE Lists! 1913:

Looking at some of these amazing racks, there would be only ONE tip off that we were not looking at the medal bar of some aristocratic Guards officer:

no long service XXV for all those KO3s. Beamten didn't get long service crosses AS full time military officials until 1920.

The three Orders (every combination of other possible classes has been eliminated), NO Long Service ribbon, and "white black" Iron Cross ribbon were what sent me off seeking an Official to begin with.

Then, since he was employed in the very heart of the Second Reich's military establishment, one has simply to flip through the online Berlin City Directories for his home address (1918) =

Still listed as "Hofrat" in 1925. There was a "Staatsbeamter DR. Eduard Trzeciok" from 1929 to the final wartime edition of 1943-- a VERY late doctorate, or had he died and that was Junior?

Well, some invisibility has to linger just to make things difficult! :catjava:

[Guest Rick Research]

DOKTOR (at 60 !) Eduard Trzeciok "scientific consultant" as we'd call him now, rather than back in 1929--

Note DOUBLE entry in the 1929 city directory above-- WITH and WITHOUT first name, at the same address in Berlin-Steglitz.

Dr. Eduard Trzeciok is referred to as a "Staatsbeamter" in 1934 (65) and "Dr. E. Trzeciok" was listed as a "Referent" in 1943-- BACK in zV wartime military uniform in his 70s????

Mysteries for some other year, perhaps.

The moral of the story is

Never Give Up

because the Guild of Research Gnomes never does! :ninja:

[Les]

Rick Research said:

Eduard Trzeciok, Geheimer Expedierende Sekretär und Kalkulator in the Geheimer Militär Kabinett, Berlin.

Seems it took a Geheimlich manoever to unearth someone who was "Geheim" ?

Btw, any ideas on what his -real- job description was with all of those "Geheimer"s in there? What would an African cattle disease specialist be doing in Asia? Rinderpest was a problem in Africa late in the 1800's, but I don't think there was any major cattle problems in Asia at that time.

Les

Edited March 11, 2023 by Dave Danner
Fix "ä"

[Guest Rick Research]

Budget gnomes, squirreling away over unit price for boot hobnails and tinned jam. Hardly seems glamorous enough to have showered down such glittery enamelled largesse, does it?

I doubt very much the Royal Corps Of Budget Human-Computers ever goose-stepped shoulder to shoulder down the Unter den Linden as throngs cheered!

Poor old Dr. Kohlstock (photo Daniel located reveals other things not matching) was a sort of all-purpose Icky Cruds specialist, dispatched wherever contagion lurked-- and one got him in the end.

[Dave Danner]

Revisiting this topic several years later to add some new information as more sources have become available since the passing of gurus like George and Rick. I've no idea where the ribbon bar ended up, but perhaps its owner will appreciate the additions.

 

First, one clarification: Hofrat Trzeciok was Eduard Gregor, born in 1869. He was the father of Dr. Eduard Hermann Trzeciok, born in 1901, who received his doctorate in 1924 and was the wissenschaftlicher Hilfsarbeiter in the later Berlin address books. So not technically a "Junior" but still his son. I've no idea the fate of the father.

 

Trzeciok received permission to wear the GSF3b on 8.9.1911 and permission to wear the Officer's Cross of the Belgian Leopold Order on 8.11.1913. That award didn't make the ribbon bar since by that point Belgium was the enemy.

 

Besides the Saxon Kriegsverdienstkreuz noted in the 1918 Court and State entry above, he also received later in 1918 the Anhalt Friedrichkreuz am grün-weißen Bande. I also have a note that he received the Württemberg Wilhelmskreuz mit Schwertern, but I can't find my source for that.

 

[Stogieman]

Thanks for bringing this up again. I recall fondly how Rick referred to me as the Evil Rick. I miss him very much. Alas I never met George, I was invited but couldn’t make the trip. Rick’s legacy lives on through this forum and the friends and fellow researchers he left behind, thanks for all you do Dave.

 

[Komtur]

On 11/03/2023 at 18:07, Dave Danner said:

... I've no idea where the ribbon bar ended up, but perhaps its owner will appreciate the additions. ...

 

Thanks very much, because it ends up here.

 

To be true, I never searched this bar in detail and especially profound for the Hofrat Eduard Trzeciok, because of some daubt, if we are on the right way.

 

As Rick stated in the first post:

 

The awards on this Old Style early wartime ribbon bar are

1) Iron Cross 2nd Class on "white black" noncombatant ribbon (3,000 during the war, 10,000 afterwards)

2) Red Eagle Order 4th Class (awarded 27.01.1913 per the final published Prussian Orders List-- which also reveals his missing first name)

3) Crown Order 4th Class (10.10.1910)

4) Saxe-Weimar "GSF3b" Order of the White Falcon-Knight 2nd (pre-1913)

5) 1897 Wilhelm I Centenary Medal

 

As Dave added we know now:

 

Trzeciok received permission to wear the GSF3b on 8.9.1911 and permission to wear the Officer's Cross of the Belgian Leopold Order on 8.11.1913. That award didn't make the ribbon bar since by that point Belgium was the enemy.

 

Besides the Saxon Kriegsverdienstkreuz noted in the 1918 Court and State entry above, he also received later in 1918 the Anhalt Friedrichkreuz am grün-weißen Bande. I also have a note that he received the Württemberg Wilhelmskreuz mit Schwertern, but I can't find my source for that.

 

To attribute the ribbon bar to the Hofrat with the indescribable name we have to assume, he never updated his ribbon bar with the Saxon, the Anhalt and the Württemberg decoration AND he got his Iron Cross 2nd class on the white ribbon distinctly before these other awards (BTW the Saxon Kriegsverdienstkreuz he got on the 22nd January 1917). This all seems not impossible, but somewhat improbable.

 

Additionaly how about the possibility, the red ribbon displays the Jerusalemkreuz and we have to search for a navy official? Unfortunately this decoration isn´t listed in the printed sources e.g. Ranglisten and Staatshandbücher.

 

Best regards,

 

Komtur.

Edited March 12, 2023 by Komtur

[Dave Danner]

I would imagine the EK2w was awarded relatively early in the war, say 1915. One of the main reasons for the creation of the Verdienstkreuz für Kriegshilfe is that the Prussians thought the value of the EK2w was being diminished by too many awards for Heimatverdienst.

 

This would have entailed tearing up his pre-war ribbon bar, adding the EK2w and likely removing the Belgian order.

 

By 1917, when given the choice of adding additional awards, perhaps rather than tear apart his existing large trapezoidal bar, he had a ribbon bar made with the now more in-style shorter ribbons.

 

Here, by the way, is an example of a wartime ribbon bar never upgraded with later wartime awards:

 

[Komtur]

1 hour ago, Dave Danner said:

I would imagine the EK2w was awarded relatively early in the war, say 1915.  (...)

 

This would have entailed tearing up his pre-war ribbon bar, adding the EK2w and likely removing the Belgian order.

 

By 1917, when given the choice of adding additional awards, perhaps rather than tear apart his existing large trapezoidal bar, he had a ribbon bar made with the now more in-style shorter ribbons. ...

 

That seems to be consistant.

 

But if there is no mistake in this source and the editorial deadline was as usual in the beginning of the year, according to the 1916 versus 1918 edition of the Rang- und Quartierliste der Beamten der Militärverwaltung in Siekmann´s Taschen-Kalender für Beamte der Militärverwaltung Trzeciok got his Iron Cross at the earliest in the course of the year 1916: