Common Combat Awards of the German Army 1939-1945 

Does he still have it

@@hadiissa2897 yeah, well I do. He left it to me after he passed in 2011 at 85

Anything more you know about him?

@@drownindesigner served in the 7th panzer division under rommel in the invasion of France, earned the second class for Partaking in rommels 200 mile push. Was transferred to the eastern front where he served until August of 44 when he went to fight the Americans

@@philswift8311 interesting. I respect your grandfather.

Rudolph PIfler

I am also aware that many US and allied airmen lost their lives in these engagements and i am sorry for this. War is hell.

You can read about his exploits on the web After being eventually shot down he won the Knights cross posthumously. The family story goes that my great grandmother in grief took down the picture of Hitler Austrians had to have up replacing it with the Catholic Cross. She was betrayed to the Gestapo but avoided punishment because of her sons hero status. His brothers story is also intense. Fighting on the Russian front he was captured during the Stalingrad battles and survived a Soviet gulag being exchanged and 'rescued' by America. The same people his brother was shooting down! He wont have a bad word spoken about America. US troops also lived with the family after VE and apparently were very decent and respectful. I blame Hitler and Georing for wasting the lives of talented brave young people and making enemies of those who should have been friends. To the lost. Never forget

@@catharperfect7036 It was strange growing up in England with this ancestral history. My Grandmother used to show me photos of him getting into his 190 'Black 4' he flew with JD 1 out of Holland and developed the technique of attacking bomber formations head on to break them up and confuse the gunners. Imagine doing that. Nuts

The Germans also had a decoration recognizing their service of personnel during the Spanish Civil War.

Dont forget the Mutters (Mothers) Cross where German women were awarded for each child they gave birth to in the service of the reich.

The KvK (Kriegsverdienstkreuz) was even awarded to jewish concentration camp inmates. A lot of hidden history out there. How is it that you risk jail in european countries for things that israeli history prof Yehuda Bauer (who works with Yad Vashem) states since atleast 1992 ? In my pov germany is still occupied and being genocided. Also interesting: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Modern War Studies), 2002 by Bryan Mark Rigg.

The following books are interesting and a good start: Macciavelli: The prince (1532) Gustave Le Bon: Psychology of the Masses (1895) Vladimir Lenin: What to be done Lenin (1902) [just in the progress of reading it but so far i can recommend it] WALTER LIPPMANN: PUBLIC OPINION (1921) Theodore N. Kaufman: Germany must perish (1941) Earnest Hooton: Hooton Plan (1943) Louis Nizer: What to do with germany (1944) Legions of Death by Rupert Butler, 1983, p.236-237 (Torture of Rudolf Hess) Dr. Michael F. Connors: Dealing in Hate. The Development of Anti-German Propaganda. (1966, 1979, 1996) Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military (Modern War Studies) (2002) Taken by Force: Rape and American GIs in Europe in World War II (2007) Professor R. M. Douglas: "Orderly And Humane" (2013) The London Cage: The Secret History of Britain's World War II Interrogation Centre (2017) Miriam Gebhardt: Crimes Unspoken: The Rape of German Women at the End of the Second World War (2017) Elie Wiesel Night (especially he differences between the french and english to the german version, he got the nobel peace price on behalf of the german goverment for it though) Books by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas on this topic in general are quite interesting. The brittish torture camp in Bad Nenndorf is also quite interesting as is the story of Shlomo Morel. There were other, simmilar camps but informations are hard to find and to my understanding classified for "national security" and "national interest" reasons (the uk even destroyed archives they had to make public about that time although they had to make it public by their own law). Supposedly the "german white book" is also factual (for me hard to tell but enemies of the nazis said so). A very interesting read and it includes the US involvment since 1939 and before. I don`t talk about the holocaust.

@@mrd7067 I also know very interesting book: SS im Einsatz: Eine Dokumentation ueber die Verbrechen der SS. Berlin: Deutscher Militaer. 1967. :)

2 years later and I’m right in the same scenario.

The gulf between EKI and EKII and the Ritterkreuz was indeed a large one - so large in fact that the German Cross in Gold was created to bridge the gap. The EKII was so widely awarded that it was close to being little more than an indication of competence and perhaps also combat service. Propaganda depictions of German troops almost invariably show them with an EKII ribbon in a buttonhole, the suggestion being that those without it were not fully soldiers. The EKI was rarer but not that rare - a combat officer or senior NCO who did not have it was perhaps regarded as not fully proved or lacking in some way. The Ritterkreuz was more often awarded to officers but could be awarded to NCOs and even privates. Men eager for military glory were sometimes referred to as having "sore throats". In the film "Cross of Iron" Stransky's coveting of the Iron Cross is hard to understand - the EKII was almost an automatic award if you weren't hopelessly incompetent or cowardly (but perhaps Stransky is) and the EKI was not much rarer. It was the Ritterkreuz that was really coveted. German troops sometimes feared being commanded by someone with a "sore throat" as they might undertake risky military operations in their quest for glory, and get their men killed.

@@stevekaczynski3793 A bit far fetched. A lot of soldriers awarded with the Ritterkreuz said their comrades were just as brave as them. The medal held in highest esteem was the Nahkampfspange

Rommel was a field marshal, as senior an army commander as you can get.

Yes, I touched on these in my very first video, but perhaps that would be an appropriate subject to explore in more depth at some point in the future.

@@HandGrenadeDivision The guy in the photo was a Z level Sonderführer and they were equivalent to the Wehrmacht rank of Leutnant. The photo was taken between 1940 and 1942. During that period Z level ones were given shoulder straps that resembled those of Leutnants, but with a chevron pattern in the cloth. After that date they reverted to a narrow shoulder strap that had been the uniform pattern prior to 1940 - the German attitude was that Sonderführers should be encouraged to gain actual officers' commissions but not have uniforms that actually suggested they had officer status.

P.s. could you recommend any source for information regarding the German equestrian badge as I've not had much luck finding any myself? Thanks for the great content👍

What a great name.

@@sgtmayhem7567 what does it mean?

Hope for what

@@badmonkey2222 For the perseverance of truth. What response are you trying to get?

The Iron cross always comes back in times of war for example after the Napoleonic wars it dissapeared and then came back for the Franco Prussian war the German military still uses it on vehicles and i bet in the next big war it will come back as an award

It is interesting that only in the Napoleonic Wars did gallantry awards come in among the military. Prior to that elite commanders might receive membership of some order, like the Garter or the Golden Fleece, but nothing for the less exalted. As though only when mass armies came in was it decided that incentives were needed.

Those are all great questions and observations, sadly I can only say I have the same questions. I think many little details like that may be lost forever as the ranks of the men who fought the war trickle down to nothing. But - and Jason Mark would probably agree - you never know what nugget you will find on a deep dive through an archive. So much out there to be discovered.

HandGrenadeDivision thank you for answering :)

Was it deliberate defacement, though, or the result of wear and tear, a hit by a shell or grenade splinter etc.? I imagine those other explanations would give a deliberate defacer a certain amount of plausible deniability.

Deliberately defacing a military decoration might be heavily punished in a place like the Third Reich. A parallel from Britain in WW1 was Siegfried Sassoon throwing away the ribbon of his Military Cross as a protest against the war (apparently he did not throw away the medal itself, as is sometimes stated). He was sent to a hospital for the shell-shocked but he risked being court-martialled.

I remember in the army, we had to memorize MOH recipients. It’s a warrior thing

Paintings and drawings of generals and Ritterkreuz holders by the artist Wolfgang Willrich were also popular and may have been shrunk to similar card form.

We dont have a Strong Army, what does this tell you?

@@kommissarvalkyre2054 That a big part of the German spirit was killed off in that war.

They deserved the fame, the Ritterkreuz was awarded for exceptional combat performance. Overpaid professional sportmen are a terrible idol.

Just had a look at your channel - you have a new subscriber, and hopefully some of the friends I recommended your channel to will also subscribe. Very nice content. Thanks for taking the time to comment here.

ottoman medals of WW1 were manufactured in germany. so they do have a tradition

There is a well known strong negative correlation between coolness of uniform and winning of wars. Leaders moustaches also cause problems but I think the graph might be an inverted U.

None of those were combat medals, except the Africa medal - but it wasn't German. :-) I appreciate the feedback and kind words.

@@HandGrenadeDivision Touché my friend, still they were Worth covering. Part 2 maybe? Also I fucking dare you to do a video covering all of Herman Goerings medals/awards. That man had more decorations then a Christmas tree.

His problem is that he remained one until the day he died. The actor who played him in Valkyrie, Thomas Kretschmann, was laughing in an interview he did that the real Remer probably wasn't smart enough to figure out that he was part of the coup, as he does in the film.

@@HandGrenadeDivision A combination of automatic obedience to orders by army superiors, and an assumption that Hitler was dead? He turned swiftly enough when it was shown that Hitler was alive. It was the triumph of one source of authority over another.

It's outside my area of interest, to be honest, so I doubt I could do the subject justice. Better someone passionate about it gives it a go.

Do you recall which Facebook group he posted this in?

@@HandGrenadeDivision "Battle of Stalingrad Forum" its a private group

Yeah its landser slang

that kind of detailed knowledge is exactly what I hope to showcase with the channel, and appeal to those like you that share an interest in it

Indeed. It's a lazy and superficial theory, which is also wrong.

jawohl