Chris Boonzaier Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I have often seen the following..... award totals for the EK 1.Verleihungsabschnitt 5.8.1914-30.4.1915 5 Großkreuze 7810 Eiserne Kreuze 1.Klasse 360 000 Eiserne Kreuze 2.Klasse 2. Verleihungsabschnitt 1.5.1916-20.9.1916 29 000 Eiserne Kreuze 1.Klasse 1 327 000 Eiserne Kreuze 2.Klasse 3. Verleihungsabschnitt 21.9.1916-4.6.1917 12 790 Eiserne Kreuze 1.Klasse 513 000 Eiserne Kreuze 2.Klasse I am guessing the first guy to quote this made a typo and the 2. Verleihungsabschnitt was actually 1.5. 1915 till 20.9.16? Does anyone have the original source of these? What it does add up to is 2 200 000 crosses by June 1917? For some reason this makes me begin to doubt the 5 200 000 awards we always read about...... It would mean 3 000 000 crosses in the last year and a half? That is cannot be correct. Just to question what we "Know".... where do the numbers above come from... I assume they are correct but with a typo... and how do we KNOW that 5 200 000 million crosses were awarded? One of the two just does not add up........
Chris Boonzaier Posted January 31, 2013 Author Posted January 31, 2013 Ok... I added up... i divided 650 EK award docs into award dates before and after June 1917.... it was an astounding even split down the middle.... 325 before, 325 after... this included post war awards and the deck was stacked because I actually go for post war ones.... I also favoured the post June 17 side when docs were issued after that dae, but the awards were potentially earlier... If we use that as a rough statistic, the sum should be about 4 400 000 and not 5 400 000 as often quoted when including postwar EK awards... That leaves me wondering where we get the figures from... and what are they based on?
Ulsterman Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 (edited) Good question. I have looked at this myself with more limited resources, BUT looking at on line Soldbuchsover the years the 50 percent split from 1917 concurs with what I have found. The last two years of the war and especially in 1918 seem to have been the huge years for EK awards. Of the 231 Soldbuchs I have records for, 110 were awarded in 1918 or backdated from 1919-1924. It's almost as if the EK was a consolation prize . I only have ONE record of an officer who did NOT get an EK2, an Ast.Arzt in the Guards who spent his entire war in Berlin. Jim Inwalle has some interesting stats. From his extensive Soldbuchsover collection. Most of the figures I have seen come from the ' standard references' sources, which in turn were not very well researched. Priviteria and I had a brief discussion about his stats. @ six years ago and he basically admitted they were guesstimates and had NO solid sources to back them up. Typical, " a guy told me this" stuff . I have a bunch of secondary quotes from Officers Association newsletters etc. and one always wonders where they got their figures. Edited March 25, 2013 by Ulsterman
saschaw Posted January 31, 2013 Posted January 31, 2013 I have no sources, but want to add the awards ended in 1924, not in 1918 or 1919, which might explain it...
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 2, 2013 Author Posted February 2, 2013 Hi, I included docs right up to the end i.e. 1924... I think in fact that if Militärpass entries had been counted instead, it would point to there being slightly less awards after June 1917 than before. Quite a number of units did not issue docs until 1916, then retroactively issued docs for awards 1914-1916... men awarded the cross before, then killed in this time period would probably not have got a doc at all... so the really counting award docs this tips the balance to more awards post june 1917, in fact it should be LESS than 4 400 000 awards... I am very interested where the total of 5 400 000 originates from....
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 OK, Bowen has "between" 1 463 000 to 5 196 000 2nd class..... thats quite a difference..... and 130 000 non combattant.... which I think is a typo...
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 Gordon Williamson has up to 5 000 000
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 Geissler says 218 000 EK1 5 196 000 EK2 13 000 White ribbon (Ergo a typo for Bowen)
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 Whatdoes fascinte me is the graph in Previteras edition 2 of the iron time I always used to think the book was basically a nice picture/Coffee table book... but this is closer to the figure I get with the award period and documents 1914-174 220 crosses 1915- 758 640 1916- 896 380 1917-907 144 1918- 854 000 post war 200 000 White ribbon 13 000 Total 3803384 Those are some pretty interesting numbers.... can it be that Previtera actually has the best estimate? Those numbers by year seem pretty definate...
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 It is laying in my locker so going from memory Nimmergut waves it off with "the accepted" sum is 5 200 000
Ulsterman Posted February 4, 2013 Posted February 4, 2013 Honestly? I can not believe there were fewer EK2s awarded in 1918 than 1917. How many Militarpasses have we seen where medals were entered upon demobilization?
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 It is guess work on my part, but I am guessing maybe the returns did not come so well in for the last few months? If we assume the "last 100 days" was a bit chaotic, and paperwork was falling behind... If we took missing final numbers into account, we could calculate up closer to the 4 400 000 that I get when I use the returns in post one with the amount of docs before and after that date. Would still be a huge amount in the last third of the war... I Emailed Previtera, he said these stats he got 17 years ago in the Museum at rastatt, from some period documentations... Either way, the 3 periods + Docs solution, and the Previtera stats, whichever be right, if any of them.... still point to about 4 400 000 or less.... So i am still curious when the first mention of 5 200 000 plus raised its head.... Bowen has it as an upper estimate... if it is as unlikely as his low estimate of 1 500 000 (which we know is wrong) then it really is a topic that needs discussion.... 5 200 000 million, no matter how often repeated... needs to be proved or explained at some point... best Chris
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 P.:S I dont mean Previteras numbers are "definate" as in without error... I just mean, they are definate numbers, as in 896 380 not "Wellllllll... about 900 000...." and definate numbers tend to come from a source using definate numbers.
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 4, 2013 Author Posted February 4, 2013 It seems that there are a few "EK numbers" that are bandied about with no critical thought.... Here is one, repeated in numerous sources........ 1 in 20 1870 soldiers got the EK.... 1494412 men served.... 44480 EKs awarded..... I am bad at math.... so maybe I am calculating wrong... but how does that give 1 in 20 ? It seems quite a number of things were taken over from Nimmerguts EK book, no questions asked...
Ulsterman Posted February 5, 2013 Posted February 5, 2013 (edited) Yup. Can you get hold of Martin Kitchens book, that he wrote with my old mentor, Hew Strachen, TheGerman Offensives of 1918? (2005). It has a reference to the number of EKs awarded by early Summer, 1918 that quotes from a newspaper article. It had some amazing statistics: @ 55,000 EK1s to officers and only 17,000 EK1 s to NCOs and Mannschaften! Note: I have contacted Kitchen about this and he has lost the original newspaper reference date that this figure was for. He thinks it was 1918....but it might be 1917! Edited March 25, 2013 by Ulsterman
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 5, 2013 Author Posted February 5, 2013 There is a very definate increase of iron Cross awards per month as the war progressed... it is often claimed the 1914 EK was "cheap" compared to the 1870 one. I dont agree. I have written an article for an upcoming "International Medal Collector" taking issie with the "in 1870 1 in 20 got the EK, in WW1, 1 in 2.5 got it" Dealt with in the article is what the difference would have been if the 1870 army had been the same size, fought for the same duration, casualties, duration of time spent in the field etc... my conclusion is, The EK was awarded in increasing amounts as the war progressed, but the award was not "cheapened" compared to the 1870 award by any means. I spent the evening totalling up award docs by month.... 1914 Sep-9 Oct-13 Nov-10 Dec-13 Total-45 1915 Jan-3 Feb-0 Mar-7 Apr-5 May-8 Jun-7 Jul-4 Aug-8 Sep-7 Oct-8 Nov-4 Dec-10 Total-71 1916 Jan-10 Feb-13 Mar-14 Apr-4 May-11 Jun-16 Jul-21 Aug-19 Sep-15 Oct-18 Nov-17 Dec-25 Total-183 1917 Jan-16 Feb-7 Mar-14 Apr-17 May-23 Jun-22 Jul-17 Aug-31 Sep-17 Oct-16 Nov-19 Dec-21 Total-220 1918 Jan-20 Feb-10 Mar-14 Apr-28 May-29 Jun-30 Jul-20 Aug-25 Sep-21 Oct-18 Nov-23 Dec-8 Total-246 Total used 765
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 5, 2013 Author Posted February 5, 2013 P.S. I used 115 more ocs than I did in post 2, and wanted to calculate the before and after June 1917 awards.... this time there was just a single doc seperating the before and after, so the proportions stay the same... 4 400 000 awards.
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 5, 2013 Author Posted February 5, 2013 There is another number in the equation.... Apparently the Scharfenberg artikel (I dont find this number in my copy of the artical) quoted the General-Ordenskommission saying 2 919 319 awards by 10 November 1917. Now, i am not sure how they got their returns for amounts awarded and if this number included Awards shipped and stored in various high/Divisional commands. Using this number with docs issued before and after 10 November 1917 we would get 4 436 397 awarded by the end of the war, then late 1918 and postwar a total of 4 841 355...
Chris Boonzaier Posted February 5, 2013 Author Posted February 5, 2013 All the above is a bit skewered as there is good chance that there are large numbers of soldiers who were awarded the EK in 1914-15 and early 16 whose units had not started handing out docs... they are not represented here. Also, postwar and end of war docs would have survived better than docs whch had rotted in a soldiers pocket while at the front... this may all not have made a huge difference, but would have changed the ratios all the same...
dond Posted February 6, 2013 Posted February 6, 2013 I also think that as the fighting became more desperate and protracted in 1918 there were more awards. Military disasters always spawn the awarding of medals.
Ulsterman Posted March 20, 2013 Posted March 20, 2013 Chris- any chance I can get hold of your article? I am going to call Holger tomorrow to ask him about his references to the medal awards summaries he talked about in his 1972 article on German Archives and sources.
turtle Posted April 13, 2013 Posted April 13, 2013 Does the new Wernitz EK book give an award number, or does it quote the usually 5 200 000?
Chris Boonzaier Posted April 13, 2013 Author Posted April 13, 2013 He has great numbers, up until the end of 1917 where it was 2 900 000. It says 5 000 000 till the end of the war, I think the source is a from a 1920s reference. I really, really dont believe the 5 000 000. The bookkeeping up until the last quarter of 1917 was really good, then it seems to be a wild guess and the proportions just dont work out. It is a really, really great book, but i have an issue with the 5 000 000. (My issue is that using about 750 award dates, I calculate proportionally how many were before and after the last accurate number in late 1917... and it is less than the 5 000 000)
turtle Posted April 13, 2013 Posted April 13, 2013 Yeah, around another 2000000 until the awarding process finally ceased seems a bit unrealistic ..... Something around 4000000 would be a convincing number in my eyes.
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