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    Picture Gallery of German Officers in Finland 1918


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    But even if this war in the North end of Europe wasn´t bloody as on the west front , people was killed here to.

    1. This shows a funeral of 61 killed German soldiers

    2. Gen von der Goltz place flowers at the funeral

    3. the mass grave .

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    • 1 month later...

    Hi Christer, is the Schimmelmann von Lindenburg pictured Theodor or a brother. I have Theodor s paperwork from school through First World War, second world war and into sixties. I am sure there are Finish awards included and 1stWW iron crosses. I will take some pictures if it's the same guy and of interest.

    Nick

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    Hi Christer, is the Schimmelmann von Lindenburg pictured Theodor or a brother. I have Theodor s paperwork from school through First World War, second world war and into sixties. I am sure there are Finish awards included and 1stWW iron crosses. I will take some pictures if it's the same guy and of interest.

    Nick

     

    Hi Nick, 

     

    Not sure really , the pic I have is from 1918 app so he have change a lot until WW2 :)

    So please show some pics , it sounds like a wonderful collection

    christer

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    • 3 weeks later...

    Bastian was later KM Admiral Max Bastian

    v Ahlfen was later GenMj Hans v Ahlfen

    v Falkenhorst was later GenObst Nikolaus v Falkenhorst

    Karmann was later Gen d Inf Friedrich Karmann

    v Uckermann was later GenLt Horst FrHr v Uckermann

    Mummert was later GenMj Werner Mummert

    Carp was later GenLt Georg Carp

    Rm Merz was later GenMj Georg Merz (he was rare!!!)

     

    Cheers

    Elwyn

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    • 2 years later...

    @christerd

    Dear christerd,

    i was so excited to find your post during my research! I am the grand-grandchild of Kurt Irmer, Kapitän zur See and chief of transportflottes. The exact same picture you posted hangs on the wall of my parents house!

    I was wondering, could you give me any further information about him, or how you got to your sources? Do you have any idea where I could look further? Its very emotional to me - I knew he was in China through his work, but that he was involved in Finland too, was new to me!

    I would be very happy to hear back from you.

    Best regards from Switzerland!

    Mira

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    22 hours ago, mira said:

    @christerd

    Dear christerd,

    i was so excited to find your post during my research! I am the grand-grandchild of Kurt Irmer, Kapitän zur See and chief of transportflottes. The exact same picture you posted hangs on the wall of my parents house!

    I was wondering, could you give me any further information about him, or how you got to your sources? Do you have any idea where I could look further? Its very emotional to me - I knew he was in China through his work, but that he was involved in Finland too, was new to me!

    I would be very happy to hear back from you.

    Best regards from Switzerland!

    Mira

    Dear Mira , 

    Fantastic !  

    The book where your grand-grandfather is mentioned is  a Finnish book ( written in Swedish) from 1922 

    its in 8 volumes and named " The War for Liberation of Finland, told by thoose who participated" 

    volume VII is about the German troops in Southern Finland and in chapter 3 written by KorvettenKapitän Bastian is your relative mentioned and the photo.  KorvettenKapitän Bastian has a lot of very respectful words to say about your grand grand father

    Kapitän Irmer was head of the transport Fleet and a key person in the movement of troops to Finland in April 1918.

    The Transport Fleet was divided into three groups :

    1st group :  SMS Kolberg  

    Fraktschiff Bahia Castillo 

    Fraktschiff Buenos Aires 

    Fraktschiff Cassel 

    Fraktschiff Frankfurt 

    Dampfer Equity 

    2nd Group :

    SMS Nautilus  

    Fraktschiff Schleswig  

    Fraktschiff Chemnitz 

    Fraktschiff Hannover

    3rd Group :

    SMS Möwe 

    Fraktschiff Habsburg 

    Fraktschiff Altenburg 

    Fraktschiff Giessen 

    So it was quite a big fleet of ships

    Some pictures of the fleet , first on shows some ships in Germany beeing loaded in Neufahrwasser 

    Second one is Bahia Castillo and a truck beeing lifted on the ship. 

    Third one is the ships on the way to Hangö, Finland 

    Picture number four shows some of the Ships in Hangö , April 1918

    I will see if I can translate some of the writing about your grand-grand father in the book, he did a great work.

     

    MFG Christer Daun

     

     

     

     

     

    jpg104.jpg

    Hangö 1918.jpg

    jpg102.jpg

    Neufahrwasser harbour.jpg

    Edited by christerd
    spelling misstake
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    @christerd

    Dear christerd!

    I am very happy and excited about your reply!

    I have to see if I can get a version of the book you mentioned here in switzerland or in germany, maybe even translated?! Otherwise - Could you post a picture of the pages referring to my great-grandfather? Of course it would be amazing if you would translate! If you dont have the time though, I have a friend who is swedish and who could probably also help out here...

    Its amazing that you could find even some personal words about my relative and i am very interested to learn more!

    He had quite some ships under his command , which is impressive... Thank you also for the pictures of the fleet!

    All the best, and thank you again for your effort!

    How does it come you got into this topic?

    Have a good day!

    Mira

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    Hi again Mira , 

    Yes today Finland celebrating 100 years as an indenpendent nation starting Dec 6th 1917  :beer:

    I began my interest about Germans in Finland April 1918 with collecting Finnish Orders and Medals and started to build a database 

    over people who got awards , and soon I realized that a lot of German soldiers got Finnish awards . And so it went on :)

    In the first days of April 1918 , there was approx 9 500 german soldiers in Finland they had 18 Artillery guns , 10 " Minenwerfer" 

    and 165 machineguns with them. I dont think there is a translated version of the book series but I will scan the chapter about the the transport fleet and hopefully your Swedish friend can translate it.

    Since I have a interest in the 1918 war I collected quite many books about it written both by Finnish and in some cases by German participants , and I will see if I can find some more info about your grand grand father.

    Do you have any info about what he did after April 1918 ? 

    The name of the book serie is ( in swedish)  " Finlands Frihetskrig , skildrat av deltagare."

    It was printed in Helsingfors 1922 and it is 8 volumes in all.

    I´ll be back 

    Christer

     

     

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    On 26/12/2013 at 07:54, christerd said:

    After a cup of coffee I uploaded a couple of more pics :)

     

    1. MarinFlieger Lt Droege

     

    2. KorvettenKapitän Pfeiffer , Kom SMS Nautilus

     

    3. Lt von Bülow , Kom 2 Komp , 14 Jäger Batl

     

    4. Rittmeister von Saldern , 1 Garde Ulan Rgt

     

    5. Hauptmann ,Stab Ostsee Div , von Falkenhorst

    img215.jpg

    img216.jpg

    img217.jpg

    img218.jpg

    img219.jpg

    When Hitler decided to invade Norway and Dennmark chosed for the task the then General von Falkenhorst because of his experience in Finnland as member qf the staff of General Rudiger v der Goltz.

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    @christerd

    Happy celebrating! :beer:

    Its very interesting how you got into the topic! And I am glad you did. Who knows, maybe otherwise I would have never find out about this part of my great-granddads career... You know, a lot of family-knwledge got lost, when at the end of the second world war a bomb hit our house, where the whole family had a birthday party...

    It would be great, if you could scan the text regarding the transport fleet and post it. And even look up further info in other books!

    I will talk to my dad and see if he knows more about my great-granddads whereabouts after 1918. I will let you know as soon as I got something!

    Thanks again for your work!

    All the best,

    Mira

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    Hi Mira,

     

    don`t know if you know all the orders and awards your great-grandpa got during his career....so here are some of them , the late war awards from the Finland time are not listed here so maybe he have got some more.... hope this helps a bit...

    all the best

    Heiko

     

    this is from 1908

    1908.PNG

    this is from 1914

    1914.PNG

    and this from 1918

    1918.PNG

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    Dear Heiko

    I had no idea! My father also didnt know about it! It seems like we really lost a lot of information...

    Its very exciting to get to know all this now.

    Thank you so much!

    Do you know how excatly these ordens and awards are called? And under which surcumstances and why they where giving to him?

    Best regards,

    Mira

    And also... where did you find this information?

    Thanks again for your effort!

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    I saw that Kurt Irmer was on SMS Frauenlob , that was a Cruiser launched in 1902 , she was sunk by a torpedo during the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and only 9 men of her crew survived . He was lucky not to be on the ship then...

    christer

    SMS_Frauenlob.jpg

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    Dear Christer

    gives me shivers to imagine... how the history can be changed like that, maybe only by chance!

    You have any idea why he was not on the ship? He probably had several under his command, if I understood right? Did you get that information also from the same book?

    Impressive picture by the way! I wonder where that was taken...

    Thanks so much again, I am excited to see how far this might get!

    Have a good evening,

    Mira

     

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    Hello Mira, back as promised....:D

     

    That`s what we are doing....collecting and researching , digging out the details from the dust of history.

    The informations of the orders and awards given to your great-grandpa are from so called Ranglisten , in these lists all the officers of the army and the navy were listed , with their ranks and positions and with the awards they got - the only small problem is that Prussian Ranglisten only showed the real orders , not awards or simple medals for some wars for example.

    Then we have another source to use , it is the DOA (Deutscher Ordens Almanach) , the one from 1908 I attached...in this book are all awards listed (with some luck) a man got....so we can try to complete the story this way.

    Now a closer look....

     

    in 1908 he had the PrZm - Preussen Zentenarmedaille or Centenarmedaille to remember the 100.birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm I. in 1897 , nothing special , given to all man who were in active service in 1897 and to the Vets of the former wars + some other groups of men.

    Then he had the DChM - Chinadenkmünze , that sows that he has been to China with the Kreuzergeschwader in 1901 during the Boxer uprising

    PrKr4 - Preussen Kronenorden 4.Klasse , nearly the lowest ranking order a officer got during his career

    AnhA3bX - thats a bit more interesting , Anhalt Orden Albrecht des Bären Ritterkreuz 2.Klasse mit Schwertern , I think he got this because he was a Anhalt native and the swords indicate that it was given as a combat award for some action in China , but I have to check this...

     

    The next list I attached for you is from 1914 , interesting because it is before the great war. Here you dont see the medals , only the orders... now he got a Long service cross for officers for 25 years of service ( possible at that time because war years and oversee years count double)

    Next is the Preussen Roter Adler Orden 4.Klasse mit der Krone - typical award for navy officers after some years of service

    and the a foreign order , SS3a is the Schwert Orden of Sweden , Ritterkreuz

     

    Now jump to the end of the war....in 1918 you don`t see the Schwert Orden from sweden anymore because only german and awards of their allied nations were listed during the war...

    He got the AF - Anhalt Friedrichskreuz , again because Anhalt was his home state....

    HH is the Hanseatenkreuz from Hamburg

    EK1 - Eisernes Kreuz 1.Klasse , that means that he have got the 2.Klasse too - these last 3 were typical ww1 awards

     

    as I said earlier , I am shure that he has got some more orders and awards during that last war year because the Rangliste 1918 is from 14.2.1918 - so 9 more months left to get some bling bling :D as commander of the Transportflotte to Finland he sould have got something more.

    That`s it for now....I gave you the german names of his orders so you can make googlesearches to see what they look like.

     

    all the best , if you have any questions we are here :beer:

    Heiko

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    Kurt Irmer wan on SMS Frauenlob in 1908 so he probably moved to another command before 1916 when she was sunk in the Jutland battle.  But I could found out that he got the Swedish Sword Order in 1908 , I have not found out why , but probably some Swedish Navy visited Germany or maybe SMS Frauenlob visited Sweden in 1908 .... the search goes on :)

    Here is a picture of a Swedish Sword Order 

    swordorder.jpg

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    And just before bedtime I found something :cheers:

    In the Rangliste of Marine 1914-18 I found his birthdate March 18 1873 , he was promoted to Kapitän zur See August 20th 1917 (if I read this right) and he was retired September 10th 1920 

     

     

    31856_a015570-00157.jpg

    31856_a015570-00157b.jpg

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    guys, I am very impressed about what you digged out here, from the dust of history!

    Thank you Heiko, for all the details! I have looked some awards up, some very interesting stuff there. Quite a new topic for me also, lots of what I will get into a bit more now. 

    Its quite sad though, that nothing of this remained in the family...

    Christer, thanks also for the picture you added, of the swedish sword order! Its so exciting how bit by bit more information comes together! 

    And you even found out about when he was promoted! Is that also in the same book, you told me about?  By the way, I find it quite a coincidence - This year, august the 20th, I turned 30, and it seems it was also my great-granddads 100th jubilee of his promotion to be captain! 

    And I was wondering, if you know what the shortcuts in the 3rd column mean? Its about his occupations during war, right? What does "R. M. U." stand for?

    Also, christer, thanks a lot for scaning the pages! I will ask my swedish friend now for the translation and am very courious to find out more!

    Have a great day!!! And thanks again!!! :beer::thumbup::D

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