Bundesrepublik Reissued 1957 awards

[Klink]

Gentlemen, this is my first post on these forums.

I'm hoping that I may find some advice in relation to the reissued 1957 awards.

My father served in the Wermacht on the Russian front and was taken prisoner in 1945, not being released by the Russians until December 1949. He of course lost all of his decorations, which included the Iron Cross 2nd class, awarded for 30 days continuous front line service. (We still have the citation).

He migrated to Australia in 1955 and to my knowledge never applied to have his decorations reissued. He is now long deceased and I would like to claim his decorations for the family. Could anyone help me out by suggesting a starting point of enquiry with the German Government?

[speedytop]

Hi Klink,

welcome to the Forum!

There had never been a reissue of Third Reich awards in Germany post 1945.

With the "Ordensgesetz" from 1957 it was only allowed to wear several decorations, most of them in a changed design without Nazi emblems.

It was and is a private initiative to obtain these awards, originals/copies or 1957 versions.

Uwe

[Tony]

Hello Klink and welcome to the forum.

I'm not sure how they're reissued but believe anyone can buy the medals from suppliers. I think Steinhauer und Lück still make the 57 medals etc. but the quality today is equivalent to that of a bubble gum machine toy. In my opinion, and it's only my opinion, you'd be better off buying old 57 decorations from the late 50s early 60s.

I think the German government will want to distance itself from anything to do with decorations between 33 and 45 even if they are the 57 version.

Others here will be able to give more direct information than me I hope.

Good luck with whatever you go for.

Tony

[DavidM]

Hello

Welcome to the forum

The 1957 new form awards were available from the outset for anyone to buy, veteran or collector alike. I believe that the only restriction was that if you wanted to wear them you had to have evidence of entitlement, e.g. original award document, soldbuch entry etc, (Uwe, am I correct on this, and if so did this only apply to members of the then newly formed West German armed forces?). The new form awards were not re-issued, rather the then West German government passed a law in 1957 (hence the term '57') which allowed the manufacture of certain awards and badges from WW2, but re-worked so that the banned swastika etc was removed.

As has been said, Steinhauer und Luck still make some of the new form awards, purely for the collectors market, but the quality is very poor compared to the ones made in the late 1950's and early 1960's. The early ones can be found made out of either left over WW2 frames or made using the original war time dies - and the quality is every bit as good as the WW2 versions. If you want a new form version of the EK, shop around and you will find early examples. What ever you do, before buying one, post photos of it on here first and get some comments.

Edited February 6, 2010 by DavidM

[speedytop]

Hi David,

German laws like the "Ordensgesetz" from 1957 are for all Germans, in uniform or in civilian clothes.

Armed forces do have additional regulations, especially for the "amount" of decorations, the order of precedence and the way of wearing them.

KR

Uwe

[Klink]

Thanks gents, that has given me more knowledge than I had yesterday!

I think I might just contact the Consulate here in Melbourne and see about getting his service records, and then take things from there. I'll keep you updated on my progress.

[Hauptmann]

Indeed, welcome to the forum! Out of curiosity, other than the IC 2nd you mentioned in your first post, what other awards did he receive? I'm assuming you know that not all awards were permitted under the 57 rules. There were quite a few that remained forbidden and were not redesigned.

But as the others have mentioned if you keep an eye out there's still quite a number of the early to mid production pieces still to be had. Of course they're also the most in demand for collectors so tend to run more than the modern pieces. But deals can still be had if you take your time. And definitely check anything you find here before laying down your hard earned cash as there are a ton being cranked out which are literally junk by comparison to the early and mid production pieces. The newer stuff tends to go fairly cheap for the most part but you definitely get what you pay for.

Dan

[Klink]

I actually don't know what he was awarded in addition to the Iron Cross, apart from a Bronze wound badge, an original of which we do have, I believe Dad obtained it from a friend of his.

I imagine he would have received campaign medals and the like, he served in Denmark for a time before going to Russia.

I'm sure that with his service records I can reconstruct what his awards were, and then start obtaining them.

And, it seems that I actually know very little about german awards at all. I shall have to study this site and learn!

Edited February 8, 2010 by Klink