K. A. G. - maker of Iron crosses from Bratislava?

[kasle]

If I remember correctly, K.A.G. is considered as unknown maker of Iron crosses. Browsing the web I found some references, that crosses marked K.A.G. were produced by company Franz Kühmayer A.G. in Poszony (today Bratislava, Slovakia). They were ordered by Königliche Eisenbahn Zentralamt and started being delivered since April 1917. I am posting the link to one of the sources in German. Author of the post with this info (Thorsten) is claiming he will show the evidence in his book "Eisernes Kreuz 1. class version 1914". Post is from 2012, so the book should be out now, Does anybody know this book?

http://feldgrau.pytalhost.com/vbulletin/archive/index.php/t-28885.html

[Eric Stahlhut]

actually,i think it was konstantin, or Tom63, who is also a member on this forum, who volunteered this info.

very interesting! thank you for bringing this to our attention

 

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

If provable it would be a very interesting fact,

at the moment it seems to be a very interesting theory.

I would be very interested in seeing any backup information as I am sceptical ... it may be correct, but it would be something totally off the wall methinks....

 

[Eric Stahlhut]

the book is actually a two volume set of approx 530 and 600 pages. i have the russian language edition

he covers this on page 156 of volume one. 

i wish i spoke russian....i've the alarming feeling that i have overlooked far more than this snippet of info

[kasle]

Yes, Chris. For me, being Slovak, it is very interesting to find out whether some EKs were produced in today´s Slovakia or not. But I am sceptical as well - K.A.G.s were always considered as early crosses. But according to that source they were delivered only since April 1917, i. e. late in the war....

I´ve got in touch with this story on ebay where one EK2 KAG is listed with this background like it was well known fact. So I googled the name of producer and found some more matches. I thought, I missed something...

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the info. I know Konstantin from Russian forums. He posted some great entries there. Thanks to my communist education I still can read Russian fluently. If you post the scan or photo of that page (pages) from his book, I would translate it in return.

Miro

[saschaw]

I do not have any of Konstantin's books, as I could not read a single word по-русски, unfortunately. I'd be very interested to see his explanation and evidence backing this up. But to be frank: I have some strong reservation...

 

On 30/07/2015 at 11:20, kasle said:

K.A.G.s were always considered as early crosses. But according to that source they were delivered only since April 1917, i. e. late in the war....

That piece of information must be true, to my understanding: As K.A.G. crosses are award types, and awarded 1st  class crosses were supplied by the five well known Berlin monopolists only in the first years of the war, K.A. G. crosses must date to mid-1917 and later. Neither have I ever seen documented groups suggesting something else.

[Eric Stahlhut]

sascha, thank you for revisiting this thread. i pulled out the above-mentioned book by K.N. and ran the pertinent pages through google's translate app--whilst the translation proved to be rudimentary at best i found no actual mention of a specific maker (especially one from present day slovakia), but he does mention the eisenbahn zentralamt, etc etc. most of the text addresses technical aspects regarding the various types from this maker. and he thinks these  crosses could be early issued crosses that were available well into the 1920s

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

In the last edition of his book (Vol. 2, p. 28) these crosses described as follows.

15.0. K.A.G. mark

1st class iron crosses made by an unidentified firm ... 

[JapanX]

1 hour ago, FAR 32 said:

 

Thank you very much for getting this information.  It seems Mr. Konstantin identified KAG as the company Franz Kuhmayer on page 156 in his first volume, but changed his mind to the maker being UNIDENTIFIED on page 26 in his second volume.     

Well, not exactly. 

We are talking about two different editions of his multi-volume work.

The early one was published in two volumes.

The later one was published in four volumes.

 

[Eric Stahlhut]

it's an extremely regrettable fact that konstantin's many wonderful tomes have not been translated nor made available in the west

[JapanX]

Well, I don`t currently have the first edition of his book, so I can`t look it up. 

But what I know is that first two volume set was published back in 2010 in Izhevsk.

And indeed at page 156 there was a part devoted to the K.A.G. crosses (described simply as "K.A.G. marking").

Now if my memory serves me right the very first time he mentioned Franz Kühmayer as a possible owner of the K.A.G. mark was at the Feldgrau forum back in 2012 https://www.feldgrau-forum.com/threads/ek2-1914-hersteller-k-a-g-800.28885/

Back then he wrote: 

Falls mir gelingen wird, die volle Variante meines Buches «Das Eiserne Kreuz 1.Klasse der Version 1914» zu verlegen, so werde ich dort die bestätigenden Dokumente aufzeigen

He managed to publish the new four volume edition only in 2014. 

And as I wrote earlier there K.A.G. mentioned as an unknown manufacturer. 

Hope this clarifies the matter.

Edited September 29, 2020 by JapanX

[Eric Stahlhut]

volume 1, pages 156-157

 

[OTTER76]

I believe K.A.G might be Klein AG, as in Klein Oberstein, a.k.a K.O.

[Eric Stahlhut]

On 30/09/2020 at 20:30, OTTER76 said:

I believe K.A.G might be Klein AG, as in Klein Oberstein, a.k.a K.O.

hi, i know pretty much nothing about intrinsic details concerning ww2 iron cross makers--- was klein the parent company to a later merger with quenzer?

is there a documented history of the two businesses/families etc etc?