German East Africa Schutztruppe

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

On some old threads on a german forum i read the sum of 3000 German troops in East Africa who could have qualified for an Iron Cross. This seems very high indeed.

A Wikipedia entry seems more realistic?

2 Stabsoffiziere, 17 Hauptleute, 49 Oberleutnants und Leutnants, 42 Sanitätsoffiziere, 1 Intendanturrat, 2 Intendantursekretäre, 1 Zahlmeister, 8 Unterzahlmeister, 4 Oberfeuerwerker und Feuerwerker, 8 Waffenmeister, 60 Unteroffiziere, 66 Sanitätsunteroffiziere und 2.472 afrikanische Soldaten.

With maybe 300-400 saolirs adding to the mix, ie, about 600 Europeans?

The 2472 African soldiers not qualifying?

Thanks

Chris

[Dave Danner]

You also have lots of civilians, including members of the Reserve and Landwehr, as well as retirees, who were living in the colony, and were called up or volunteered. Here is an award list from September 1916.  Obviously, as you know from your documents, many awards were made later, especially to returning POWs in 1918-20, but this was one of the first big lists while they still gazetted them.  If nothing else, you could add up the ranks and see what the ratios are among of active, reserve/Landwehr, and a.D. officers, NCOs and soldiers were.

[JPL]

Hi Dave,

Would it be possible to get a higher resolution image

Kindest Regards,

Jean-Paul

[Dave Danner]

Jean-Paul,

If you click on the image, there should be a place in the lower corner which says "full size", on which you can click to get it.

Otherwise, try this after gmic.co.uk (I am not sure if this is a persistent URL, and if I put the whole URL in, it automatically inserts the image):

uploads/monthly_2016_01/56900126bd76e_EKSchutztrDOA2.9.16.jpg.94bb3baf0ce853d7810ed2eba63fb746.jpg

[JPL]

Hi Dave,

Your suggestion works. Thanks for the help.

Jean-Paul