For Research Identifiable-To-Be Medal Bars Number 5

[Claudio]

Dear Rick,

I am sure you remember this one...

Quite a elusive reserve officer with lots of exotic stuff in the end of his bar and on his Miniaturkettchen, which alas I don't own... but surely he's from the same original wearer...

This won't be so easy to be researched, either, I am afraid...

Best regards,

Claudio

[saschaw]

One of my all-time favourites, at least since I found the picture of the chain in an old auction catalogue. Unbelievable this was still unsuccesfull...

Grade of the Italian order as well as presence of Imperial Chinese decoration indicate he had them pre-1914... hopefully while still (sometimes) in uniform, and not "dR/dL aD" ?

KO on the chain must be a KO2, if they make a pair - which I'm sure they do. So we're looking for a Prussian with unusal KO2/RAO4 combination, with additional bizzare stuff from Far East - and cannot find him?!

[Claudio]

Hi Sascha!

Yes, it's a nice one... thank you for the picture of the miniatures. It would be cool to know who has them, because surely they belong to the medal bar. Very, very unusual group with lots of exotic decorations... Too bad, that there aren't rolls for the Schaumburg-Lippe Kreuz für treue Dienste (1914-18)... it was scarcely given, due to the small size of the principality...

C

[saschaw]

I came across this old thread, and can hardly believe the wearer of this bar (or set) still couldn't be identified. I made some more tries, and failed, again. My best idea then was to hunt him down in the indexed Deutscher Ordens-Almanach. Sure the Ecuadoran Orden Nacional al Mérito would be most helpful here... unless that hadn't been instituted until the 1920s! I am at my wit's end, or rather at my resources'... an invisible man.

Edited April 11, 2020 by saschaw

[Great Dane]

I'm not convinced that the miniature chain belongs to the same man - too many inconsistencies...

I know awards on the miniature chain could represent commander grade or higher, so wouldn't be on the bar, but why e.g. would the Italian order be without crown on the bar and with crown on the mini (two different periods)?

[saschaw]

4 hours ago, Great Dane said:

(...) would the Italian order be without crown on the bar and with crown on the mini (two different periods)?

Sorry, but that's not two periods, but two different classes: knight's cross (JM5) vs. officer's cross (JM4). A mistake not unheard of, even from a premium outfitter. Besides that, I don't really see too many inconsistencies: The Chinese decoration is definitely a neck decoration, and the Ecuadoran order, awarded to this man in the 1920s, could hardly be a breast decoration either.

What I hadn't noticed by now is the lack of an EK for the chain. While that's entirely possible, I think we should consider the possibility the Prussian Royal Crown Order might be a later, non-fitting replacement. I find it also noteworthy both pieces are made by the Gebr. Godet firm and thus in the 1930s, but the chain dates to the years until 1934/35, whereas the medal bar wasn't created before 1938, the year the Treudienst-Ehrenzeichen was instituted.

[Great Dane]

Ah, I see... thanks for the correction ?

Did you try to search for the recipient based on the bar alone or is that combination too generic?

[saschaw]

The combination alone from the bar is definitely unique, but the problem is: where to look. For officers of the Prussian army, the main sources are the annual rank list, showing all noteworthy awards to the listed men. But the last Prussian army rank list was published in (early) 1914, so I have to work with his pre-war decorations: the RAO4, a Landwehr long service award 1st class (or possibly then 2nd class?) and the Italian order, plus the Chinese award from the chain. Everything else is WW1 era or later, or unlisted as commemorative medals.

As I cannot find anyone that matches in the 1914 rank list, he probably was already out of military service, getting some of his awards as a civil servant or a private citizen. Career officers would be so much easier to find... we would have to know in which year he's still listed, and in which he dropped out - and that's pure guessing. I wasn't lucky now, but maybe someone else will have a brilliant idea... hope dies last, and this combination is leaping to the eye.

[Dave Danner]

He is actually in the 1914 rank list, on page 755, as a Rittmeister der Reserve (V Berlin) in the reserve of Husaren-Regiment Nr. 7, with the RAO4, LD1, CDIII2 and JM4.

It is Dr. Arthur Mudra, Ambassador to Ecuador from 1928 to 1932. He was born on 30 December 1871 in Berlin and died in 1960.

Almost all of his foreign decorations were as a diplomat, not an Army officer. He was a consul in Shanghai during the Boxer Rebellion, and later in Yokohama and Nagasaki (where he also represented Italy and Romania), so that would account for the Chinese, Japanese and Italian decorations. In 1910 he was Generalkonsul in Philadelphia and was still there after World War I started, since he is recorded as protesting British armed merchant ships in the Port of Philadelphia in September 1914.  He returned to Germany at some point later, and received the Schaumburg-Lippe Kreuz für Treue Dienste on 25.02.1916 while serving with Staffelstab 389.

I would assume there is a more complete biography in the Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871-1945, but I do not have the volume with the letter "M". Maybe Glenn or Daniel has access to it.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Dave Danner

[saschaw]

Wow, Dave, I'm impressed - thank you so much! I must have missed him in the 1914 list, then decided to spend half my weekend hunting him down manually in the 1909 issue, but with few success: I had an eye for all Reserve and Landwehr officers with any LD and JM5 or any CD grade, for well-known reasons. It was quite interesting to see how relatively many German officers had such an Chinese order, and how surprisingly few had an JM5.

Ignoring those with other awards lacking here, my search ended with a dozen potential wearers - Mudra was one of them, in 1909 still with LD2 and CDIII2 only. Now I'm really glad I'm not to take another day with another rank list...

Did he get a late KO2, or can we actually assume the cross is a non-fitting replacement to his chain, as I suggested before, instead of the Iron Cross he is supposed to wear?

Edited April 13, 2020 by saschaw

[Claudio]

2 hours ago, Dave Danner said:

He is actually in the 1914 rank list, on page 755, as a Rittmeister der Reserve (V Berlin) in the reserve of Husaren-Regiment Nr. 7, with the RAO4, LD1, CDIII2 and JM4.

It is Dr. Arthur Mudra, Ambassador to Ecuador from 1928 to 1932. He was born on 30 December 1871 in Berlin and died in 1960.

Almost all of his foreign decorations were as a diplomat, not an Army officer. He was a consul in Shanghai during the Boxer Rebellion, and later in Yokohama and Nagasaki (where he also represented Italy and Romania), so that would account for the Chinese, Japanese and Italian decorations. In 1910 he was Generalkonsul in Philadelphia and was still there after World War I started, since he is recorded as protesting British armed merchant ships in the Port of Philadelphia in September 1914.  He returned to Germany at some point later, and received the Schaumburg-Lippe Kreuz für Treue Dienste on 25.02.1916 while serving with Staffelstab 389.

I would assume there is a more complete biography in the Biographisches Handbuch des deutschen Auswärtigen Dienstes 1871-1945, but I do not have the volume with the letter "M". Maybe Glenn or Daniel has access to it.

Dave! ??????????
 

You are the Man! Great research work... thanks also to Sascha! ?
 

I checked but he wasn’t directly related to General der Infanterie von Mudra PLM m.E., if he was he would have also had the aristocratic prefix “von”.

Now we have also a face..

Thank you all!!!??????

Claudio

 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Claudio

[Dave Danner]

5 hours ago, saschaw said:

Wow, Dave, I'm impressed - thank you so much! I must have missed him in the 1914 list, then decided to spend half my weekend hunting him down manually in the 1909 issue, but with few success: I had an eye for all Reserve and Landwehr officers with any LD and JM5 or any CD grade, for well-known reasons. It was quite interesting to see how relatively many German officers had such an Chinese order, and how surprisingly few had an JM5.

Ignoring those with other awards lacking here, my search ended with a dozen potential wearers - Mudra was one of them, in 1909 still with LD2 and CDIII2 only. Now I'm really glad I'm not to take another day with another rank list...

Did he get a late KO2, or can we actually assume the cross is a non-fitting replacement to his chain, as I suggested before, instead of the Iron Cross he is supposed to wear?

I can't say for certain. It might be a substitute for the EK2, although he might have worn an EK1 and left an EK2 off the chain. He is not in the 1918 Handbuch für das deutsche Reich, so he was not apparently in diplomatic service when that was published. If he got a Kronenorden it might have been late in 1918 and I don't have any sources for that. I have been slowly going through the Reichsverwaltungsblatt issues in 1918 looking for awards made to government officials after the 1918 Prussian Court and State and 1918 Reich Handbuch were published, but it an incomplete list and a slow process.