Beautiful Award Documents: Hesse

[Guest Rick Research]

Hesse-Darmstadt's WW1 award documents are the most colorful issue certificates I've ever seen.

Somebody had a framed Hessian General Document, the thread for which I have had no luck finding, so here is one from a local collection "loose"--

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Musketier Johann Ochs of 9th Company, Landwehr Infantry Regiment 349 had his General Decoration "for Bravery" authorized at Darmstadt on 30 December 1916.

His rank in that unit suggests the by then common practice of sending teenagers fresh out of boot camp to semi-quiet sections on the Eastern Front for "seasoning" before shipping them west. LIR 349 was in the 91st Infantry Divisoon, engaged in attempts to take Kovel from July to November 1916, and then in trench warfare along the upper Styr and Stochod rivers sector until pulled out of the line for rest in January 1917.

On the BACKS of these (hidden by the framed item I can't find now) was the notation when the decoration was actually handed over at the unit:

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Mail service was not bad at all-- 13 January 1917!