Appeasement Tour Nazi Day-trippers' Ribbon Bars

February 2, 2010

Top: This splendiferously be-ribboned Austrian Nazi might possibly have only been a private in the Great War and a mere SA-Mann in 1939. We know that he WAS a Nazi because he got the March 1938 Anschluss Medal—first of the so-called “Flowers campaigns” medals—AS an Austrian. He then tagged along to the Sudetenland that October or for Prague the next spring. Whatever his actual day job was, and we can only wonder as to his status and additional ribbons for the Second War—he MUST have provoked considerable jealousy among the other tourists on his bus! (His Central Powers WWI Commemoratives are in typical non-regulation position….)

Middle let: This ex-Baden officer/Baltic Freikorps veteran also just went along for the ride/stroll into the Sudetenland. He wore no long service award of any type so neither Wehrmacht nor career civil service. Just another Nazi out for the day? (His Baltic Cross is in the wrong place, tch tch.)

Middle right: Here we see some sort of elderly under-achieving ex-Bavarian career NCO in his late 40s or an even older Reserve/Landwehr type pushing 60. He was in range of the guns in the Great War, but came out of those years with absolutely nothing to show for it. Presumably another day-trip bus rider, since goose-stepping at his age would have been a chore. Not a uniformed civil servant—again no Third Reich long service award. He would have wanted to sit as far away from that Austrian show-off as possible!

Bottom left: This underachieving ex-NCO was from Saxony. Bizarrely, he managed to come up with a combatant WW1 Iron Cross despite never being at the front. Why Prussia should have decorated him when all he got from his own state was the “none-of-the-above” War Merit Cross is another mystery to this parade-extra Nazi’s rack.

Bottom right: OK, so maybe this Bavarian was JUST a bit short of his civil service 25 and was not a bussed-in Storm Trooper. He’d been at the front in the Great War long enough to be decorated by HIS home state, but not long enough for the usual pair with an Iron Cross. This one might have been in the railways, post office, or some such uniformed civilian.

Any other “no explanation” civilian bars out there?

OvBacon · February 2, 2010

Thanx for this, You turned it into a great read...

Ramon

Edited February 2, 2010 by OvBacon

peter monahan · February 5, 2010

"What did you do in the Great War, mein vater?"

"Signed a Great deal of paperwork. Oh, and went on bus tours with mein Alt Kamaraden."

Kind os sad, in one light - measured against the bars and the service they represented - of some of the frontliners.

Fascinating insight into the Germanic mind set of the time, though, as presumably these guys weren't shy enough to leave all this stuff in the closet and must have had some answer to "What did you really do in the war?" when they met a real trench rat.