A Turkish Super Hero FINALLY Identified !

[Guest Rick Research]

Got this from Evil Ricky 4 November 2002 so almost 6 years to the day trying to find it! On navy blue backing and from the combination--including miniature "Black Sea" bar on the Turkish War Medal star ribbon, I've known from Day 1 that it had to have belonged to a naval DOCTOR... but which ONE?

All it required was a simple trans-continental Courier Research Gnome to PERSONALLY deliver the right reference source! :jumping:

[Guest Rick Research]

There is SOME confusion between the entries for "TM4" and "TO4" and what is actually on here (TM4X) but this simply indicates how even PERIOD sources must be "trusted but VERIFIED."

Sadly, the only place possible to do that would be the German naval archives, sitting truculently uncooperative upon all Imperial navy officer service records.

Willi Geile showed published Marine Verordnungsbl?tter gazette entries on 14.07.14 for a "peacetime" TM4, and an obviously incorrect GOLD Liakat 18.11.14 which was not what somebody his rank was handed in pre-War Medal star days. Exotic foreign awards often baffled stodgy German clerks. There are some entries in the Stammliste for awards like "Bulgarian neck Order" so... perhaps even the RECIPIENTS weren't sure wwhat they'd been handed!

I'd rather trust the entry here from the German Naval Medical Officers 1848-1918 Stammliste, and a simple glitch with the "two" Orders, since everything else matches.

[Guest Rick Research]

Dr. Willrich was recalled to Kriegsmarine service in the mid-1930s with retroactive seniority as Marine Oberstabsarzt as shown here in 1936:

He apparently died in 1938, since his WIDOW, Anni, is listed in the 1939 Naval Officers Association Directory. With no Wehrmacht long service awards here, this beautiful ribbon bar dates circa August 1934 to September 1936.

Thanks Glenn! :jumping:

[Noor]

Amazing job and ribbon bar what you have there...

Like I understand is this one Navy as well? What about the second ribbon on the last bar - am I correct that it is pre WW1 Crown Order or its not make sense??? In this case officer bar

Edited October 30, 2008 by Noor

[Ulsterman]

Doctor aboard the Goeben huh?

HE SCORES!!!!!!

Congrats!

I think you owe Stogierick a pint.

Edited October 30, 2008 by Ulsterman

[Guest Rick Research]

Ha! After 6 years of sleepless nights, other way around.

ALWAYS show me the backs of the ribbon bars.

That is definitely ONE of the possible Prussian/Reichs long service awards, not a Crown Order. Everything about that pair suggests SOME kind of navy but must see the backs.

Nothing on there can be used to trace this-- not Reichsmarine, no lists of Turkish awards AS awards.

The DOCTORS are listed as a CORPS, not by awards.

[Ed_Haynes]

Nice. But a GERMAN "superhero", hardly a Turkish one?

[Ulsterman]

The crew of the Goeben I believe was seconded to the Ottoman Empire at the outbreak of war-wearing fezzes as well to signal the "change". Technically he was an Ottoman officer in 1914/15.

[Ed_Haynes]

Yes, my point exactly. He was a GERMAN officer on loan to the allied Ottoman Empire. He was no more a Turk than he was a Hottentot. That he got awards from this ally is not surprising, many Ottomans got German awards, many Soviets got US awards, many US soldiers got awards from South Vietnam, etc.

Still, a lovely German ribbon bar and it is good to see its history reclaimed and restored.

Edited October 30, 2008 by Ed_Haynes

[Ulsterman]

Yet his exceptional medals are those of the Ottoman Empire.

Thus, he is a "Turkish" hero, just as Soviets who got a US award are "Soviet" heroes and were rhetorically hailed as such at post war award ceremonies, well lubricated with vodka and schnapps.

[Guest Rick Research]

That was the emphasis I was making. The German "front end" of his awards is... underwhelming.

His FIVE Ottoman awards are amazing, getting the whole range of awards from Lifesaving to multiple repeated acts of valor!

The legal fiction that the Goeben etc crew members were Turkish volunteers was NOT simply for the enemy's sake... after the war, there were fiercely fought German bureaucratic sanfus as to whether they were or were not entitled to having their war service COUNTED as "German" at all for everything as mundane as double-war time for long service awards to pensions. It took some years to straighten out, with hardship and worry and resentment along the way.