EK 1870 When were the awards made?

[Chris Boonzaier]

There are some references I have seem to officers getting an award from the Kaiser during the war... but all award documents seem to be post war.

Here is my question...

The documents are post war?

What % of award were made during the war? What % after the war?

For some reason i had assumed almost all were postwar, the authority for generals to award medals only becoming possible in WW1?

All the best

Chris

[Dave Danner]

No clue about the percentage, but there are numerous announcements in the Militair-Wochenblatt in 1870 and 1871 of awards of the EK2, starting around 6 August 1870 with the award of the EK to the Crown Prince after the German victory in the Battle of Weißenburg. Typically, they weren't official announcements, but reports from various units of soldiers who had been decorated. For instance, the 22 October 1870 issue included a report from Grenadier-Regiment Nr. 11 of awards of the EK2 to Unteroffizier August Fenselau, Gefreiter Otto Hein, Hornist Wilhelm Hannig, Füsilier Ernst Horstmann and Füsilier August Riedel.

In the 1870-71 rank list of the Prussian Army and Navy, which was published shortly after the war ended, most officers in various regiments seem to already have their EKs. I suppose many of these could have been awarded in victory ceremonies after the war ended, though. The Nachtrag, which was finalized on 1 October 1871, adds a bunch more awards, especially EK1s, for various officers.

Here is an example page for the aforementioned GR 11:

[Chris Boonzaier]

So the claim that the WW1 cross was cheapened in part by a bunch of postwar awards is pretty much torpedoed as it happened in 1871 as well.

Here is what i dont get... another argument to the cheapening of the EK in 1914 was that Divisional commanders could award it, as opposed to the kaiser in 1870.... I wonder where this statement comes from....

if most of the awards were made by the end of the war, the kaiser and his ordenskommision had approved maybe 30 000 awards in half a year...

Is there anything to suggest that in 1870 Divisional commanders did not have the same power to award the cross on the kaisers behalf as they would later have in 1914?

[Chris Boonzaier]

Added to the above.... the men who got the award on the years before the formal award documents were handed out.... were their awards just recorded in the militärpass and regiment?

I have yet to see some kind of preliminary or interim award document

Best

Chris

[Dave Danner]

I imagine they were also recorded in a master file by the General-Ordens-Komission.

[Ulsterman]

Actually I think you might find the award procedures in the Bundesarchives. I spoke to Michael Howard at a RUSI conference in the 1980s and he said he had read stuff about the EK award procedures when he was researching his book.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

Do you know how much detail was in the stuff he saw? I guess there are bits and pieces all over, but I am hoping for the really down and dirty nuts and bolts stuff... apparently in the Prussian Secret archives in Berlin there is the mother load, but it has been picked by authors/researchers for some time... and still I see no answers to info like this.

Maybe the new german book coming out has some info.

[Ulsterman]

I have no idea. It was 30 years ago, but I was medal mad even as a college kid and Howard was revising his book, so i asked him. I reckon there must be all sorts of letters, memorandum of criteria, clarifications, nominations etc. etc. still in the Bundesarchives.