Uncategorised Book Project - Iron Cross Documents

[Brian R]

Fellow Collectors:

I recent months I've started a book project concerning award documents for the 1939 Iron Cross First and Second Class. Inspired by William Hammelman’s book on WWI EK docs as well as Chris Boonzaier’s website; Kaiserscross.com, I am putting together a study of the WWII EK citation. The idea is to not only give a background of these docs, but to also present them from a historical standpoint. The project is in two parts; a general overview as well as a chronological history of the war told with various document examples.

So far I have over 70 examples of docs for this project that cover a significant amount of the war. I'm hoping to add to this with the help of the forum and its members. The major parts that I am missing are documents that can be attributed to the following...�

Battle of Kursk
Invasion of Sicily and Italy/Salerno (I already have examples that cover the crossing at Messina as well as the fighting around Cassino)
Operation Bagration and the destruction of Army Group Center
Operation Market Garden (Arnhem, Nijmegen etc.)
The fighting around Aachen and other border battles on the Western Front

I'm also looking for...

Variations - docs that are of alternative designs and/or for a specific unit.

Any documents that are especially interesting... unique units, unique circumstances or actions, and interesting recipients. I'd like to include more examples that include specific details of how an award was earned (docs with details from a CO for example would be excellent).

Please send a PM or contact me at if interested. I'm looking for scans that have not been published before. Please provide the best scans possible (at least 300 dpi) and please limit them to just EK1 and EK2.

All document owners will be given complete credit.

Thanks and best regards,
Brian R.
Brooklyn, NY

Edited January 21, 2015 by Brian R

[Phil Steele]

Hi Brian,

I have an EK2 document which may or may not be of interest to you. The recipient was a motor cycle rider in the heavy Recon Battalion of the 6th Infantry Division which fought at Kursk. The award date is 13.9.43. Obviously this is after Kursk but I am wondering how much later after an act of heroism were bravery awards given. I have read that with combat badges because they were not awarded for an individual act but more a culmination of events, it often took over a year before soldiers were awarded Infantry badges and the like. So perhaps this EK2 document may relate to Kursk or at least not long thereafter. I will post the document on this thread if you are interested.

Phil