Got to love archives

[dante]

So wading through some passes and came across this...... EK2 entered, no other notes in the pass, who entered it.....so into the archives and this letter was in it........least it confirms he did not get it and more likely he entered it in the pass......naughty boy, trying to impress the young ones!!

[Naxos]

Good one!

I like this, everything is there!

Note the scratched entry: October 10, 1918 " vermisst " and then the correction: " wegen wunden Fuessen in Lazarett Cassel."

On Oct. 10, 1918 he was nowhere to be found - so his officer entered in the man's Militaerpass: "missing"

Well, he must have shown up later, since the entry was scratched. Here is his explanation for being MIA (or perhaps AWOL?) - "My feet were sore so I checked into a hospital".

This guy is hilarious, "wunde Füße" means literally "sore feet" not any half serious abrasion to a limb.

I have never heard of any Infantry man that didn't had sore feet.

Then, 20 years later, he proudly wants to wear an Iron Cross to impress the young that are leaving to fight in a new war.

But here is a little justice:

When he applied in 1940, with forged passport entry in hand as proof, to get his Iron cross, they actually checked the records .... and said: "No!"

This is great stuff!

Edited September 23, 2013 by Naxos

[Ulsterman]

Awesome!

very,very German.......'your papers are not in order'

[Chris Boonzaier]

It is always a very hard call.... he was involved in 2 and a bit months of positional warfare.... much could happen in that period.... At the end of 1918 things could be chaotic... maybe not his fault that records were chaotic....

How did he land up in a hessen Unit???? and then a bavarian???

A recipe for administrative disaster!

I would almost vote for the defendant here.... it is not sure, but certainly possible that he served well for a couple of months... (A couple of months that our generation will never have to suffer through)... then sick for 5 months it seems (Spanish Flu maybe?)... then to a Hessen unit to complicate things,

Notice how the Militärpass in an entry from the 31st of December 1918 says he has been missing since 1.10.18...... But his record shows that on the 24.10.18 he was transfered to the 18. Armee, and then on the 20.12.18 to the 1st bavarian infantry regiment....

I think this guy was probably a cork bobbing in a sea of confusion, maybe not even his own fault.

It may also be very possible that he DID get an EK... lets not forget, the officer who filled this out had him as "missing" in a period he was in 2 other units!

A very confusing book indeed.... :-)