Teenaged Artilleryman, Nazi Shirker

[Guest Rick Research]

This is the epic of an ordinary soldier of the Great War-- Walter Hans Heinrich Kahl, Altona born and bred.

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[Guest Rick Research]

In 1914 at the age of 19 he was a War Volunteer, joining up at the 45th Field Artillery Regiment. Here he is the winter of 1914, and from his 1937 Wehrpass, age 42:

[Guest Rick Research]

What's that under his signature, sez you? Well you might ask. It was EVER so carefully pencilled over when I got the group from my friend in Hamburg who lived on the same street and worked with him for years at BB&V:

you see folks, what Walter was HIDING (he hoped) from posterity was THIS:

That is no mere Party Member pin. That is the Hoheitzeichen designating an "Amtswalter der NSDAP." Yup, Walter was a Nazi Amtswalter-- a functionary of the D.A.F.

Saved his life, that did. But I get ahead of myself....

[Guest Rick Research]

By January 1915 he was out of training and assigned to Feldart Regt 24. These pages of his WW1 Milit?rpa? show that as well as his promotion to Gefreiter 3 July 1917 and his two wartime awards-- Iron Cross 2nd Class "27 January" (11 February) 1917 and Black Wound Badge "22 April" (2 September) 1918:

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[Guest Rick Research]

I have never seen military documents as scrupulously stored-- his WW1 Milit?rpa? is immaculate, tucked right into a flap in the deluxe custom cover of his 1937-45 Wehrpass.

Here is his main combat entries page while with Feldart 24. Note that he was wounded at Somme Py on 8 December 1915 by shrapnel to the left thigh, but remained with his battery:

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He was a gun aimer (Richtkanonier).

[Guest Rick Research]

He was transferred to Feldartillerie Regiment 405 in November 1916, going from the western to the Eastern front-- and the siege of Riga

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[Guest Rick Research]

Here's an overcoat shoulder strap from Feldart Regt 405 which he held onto as a souvenir:

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[Guest Rick Research]

And his Iron Cross 2nd Class document, authorized on the Kaiser's birthday 1917 but actually handed over by Regimental Commander Oberstleutnant Woltag on 11 February 1917:

Woltag had been in Garde Feldart Regt 2 before the war.

Field Artillery Regiment 405 was in the "29th Mixed Landwehr Brigade," but that is the ONLY higher affiliation I have ever been able to find for the unit. It has never turned up in any divisional Order of Battle I've looked through!

[Guest Rick Research]

And his inexplicably belated Wound Badge document-- all I can think is that his regiment simply didn't GET any of the badges until this late:

Serving on the regimental staff since 16 April 1917 would have put him higher up on the "food chain," one would have thought!

This was signed by the 405's then-Commander, Major Mehler, ex of Feldart 45. There may have been some "cadre" link, though I suppose this could simply be a coincidence.

There was no Wound Badge in the group... but then there was no NS-Amtswalter pin, either.

[Guest Rick Research]

Kahl's last actions with FAR 405 until discharge page

Note the "clasped paws" counter-stamp of the regiment's "Soldatenrat," the despised Red Commissariat of 1919:

Kahl was demobilized on 13 January 1919. He had survived the war!

Next up, Between The Wars

[Guest Rick Research]

As an "office employee" Kahl received an early Hindenburg Cross for combatants on 11 December 1934

As is so often the case with this most common paperwork for THE most common af all German awards, it is the issuing authority that lends some autograph interest:

Police President Paul "Hinkler" was born in 1892 and served as a WW1 Leutnant der Reserve. He joined the NSDAP on 15 July 1922 (!) and was cashiered from his school teaching position in 1926 as a result of Party activism. Gauleiter of Halle-Merseburg before 1933 and Nazi member of the Prussian Landtag. He was Police President of Altona from 1933, MdR in 1936, and finally Police President of Wuppertal 8.3.39-18.8.43 as an SA Gruppenf?hrer.

The embossed seal on Altona's HCX documents is a nice touch instead of the usual rubber stamp:

[Guest Rick Research]

And here we have Kahl's immaculately kept Wehrpass in deluxe leatherette outer cover. In this he kept all his various military papers from 1914-45:

[Guest Rick Research]

Most important of those extra papers was, of course, his prized pink Wehrpass "Notiz F"-- the so-called "Get Out of the Wehrmacht Free Card"--

Not QUITE as good as the Permanent Exemption, this flimsy sheet nonetheless gave the possessor-- as long as he remained at his "essential to the war effort" job-- freedom from military call-up.

Kahl was in a minor Nazi Party shop steward supervisory position at United German Metal Works in Hamburg at this time.

[Guest Rick Research]

During the war such superfluous frippery was out for the duration, but after checking in on his essential status year after year, in 1944 he was STILL considered "exempt"

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[Guest Rick Research]

Mind you, though he never did receive a call up for Wehrmacht duty, life on the home front--even as a special treatment Party Comrade-- was not entirely without risk. Hamburg was a major bombing target all through the war, and as the stamps in his Wehrpass showed, Kahl travelled a lot on steel industry business, crisscrossing the Reich.

In what may have been his last such trip, he received this official business free travel voucher from Reichsbahn Direction Hamburg, authorizing round trip fare to Rochlitz on 28 February 1945

As the Reich collapsed inward, lines and rolling stock smashed, it was the Time of the Jabo-- no train was safe, anywhere.

But Walter Kahl survived. He lived down the street from my own friend in Hamburg, and finished his working life at Blohm & Voss, A.G. in Hamburg. He was a pleasant, sociable fellow-- a "nice guy." He never talked about the war--either one--but then many Germans of his generation never did, either.

Any OTHER awards he picked up along the way for war effort merit, Party long service and so on, presumably went the way of his NSDAP Membership card-- conveniently forgotten.

Just one story out of millions.

[dond]

Great thread Rick. I love when life is breathed into these old objects.

thanks

Don

[VtwinVince]

A fascinating and typical biography of the times, Rick. I think your man was the poster boy for millions of Germans caught up in the politics of the times, quietly doing "their thing", and then equally quietly being "reintegrated" into postwar society, with the convenient "loss" of any Third Reich trappings.

[joe campbell]

breathing life into the paper and pictures...

most impressive! most appreciated!

joe

[Bob Hunter]

Superb group! Thanks for sharing it.