EK 1914 Irritates the hell out of me.....

[Chris Boonzaier]

Some of you may know one of my pet peeves are collectors going on about how the Iron Cross in WW1 was devalued for a bunch of reasons that IMHO are just dead wrong.

One of them is the argument "Towards the end of the war there was a rush to give awards to men before the war ended... and the cross was further devalued by postwar awards, where anyone who felt he had been hard done by and overlooked could apply".

I find this baseless, uninformed and generalising about something the deprecator seems to know nothing about.

I was cataloging a bunch of stuff this evening and found this "cheap" post war award.....

[Chris Boonzaier]

"obviously a guy who thought he was hard done by and went looking for an award after the award... yada yada yada"....

Here is "his war"....

[Robin Lumsden]

Methinketh he deserved his EK.

[Chris Boonzaier]

He was there basically from day one, at Verdun for the whole battle, took part in the Champagne battles in 1917, was there for the 1918 offensives....

and got nada....

until after the war.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Methinketh he deserved his EK.

Methinkssoto ;-)

[dond]

Makes you wonder why he had not gotten it earlier.......

[Chris Boonzaier]

Makes you wonder why he had not gotten it earlier.......

He was in an ammunition column, small unit, rated as "very good" and no punishments...

I guess they did not get large quotas of EK.

Best

Chris

[Brian Wolfe]

Hi Chris,

I know this is a pet peeve of yours and rightly so. Everyone has their own opinion about the EK whether it was devalued or not and why or why is was not. You opinion is based on research over a long time so it holds a lot of weight. Other opinions seemed based on the attitude, "because I say so", as their qualifications of fact. Perhaps if the EK had been named the attitude would be different, in fact they would cost many times what they do now.

You have just added more validity to your opinion, well done.

Regards

Brian

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Chris.

Thanks for showing this.

This man served the entire war on the Western Front including during the worst part of the Battle of Verdun. The munition transport, really all transport coming anywhere near the frontlines were arty targets and oftentimes with devastating results. The observation means re. balloon, airplane and other were more and more utilised with good effect.

I dare say he deserved the cross.

Bernhard H. Holst