"Insanely Rare" Documents: Baden WWI
ho hum you say? Seen more attractive dog licenses? Well...Maybe the fact that there were 150 LESS of these than of the Pour le Merite will perk up your interest!
Depending on who's counting, there were either 514 or 525 Orders of the Zähringen Lion-Knights 1st Classes with Swords awarded in WWI. Actually, these omit any awarded after May 1918, and I know at least one award that was missed in the Roll. Let's be generous and say just under 600, shall we? Still almost, if not more than, 100 less than the 687 "Blue Max" bestowals.
Baden was rigidly hidebound about awards, tying them to the recipients' ranks, and not degree of merit. There were exceptions (there are always exceptions, but in these cases, a literal handful only), but basically
Leutnants and Oberleutnants received the Knight 2nd with Swords
Hauptleute received the Knight 2nd with Oakleaves
Majors received the Knight 1st
Oberstleutnants received the Knight 1st with Oakleaves.
There was no provision for second awards, or advancement in grades. Indeed, I have yet to find a single case where a Lieutenant, in receipt of the Knight 2nd with Swords, EVER got the Oakleaves thereto, even after being promoted to Captain. Baden was a "one shot" award state.
Kriegsgerichtsrat (Judge Advocate Major) Carl Jean Arthur Horchler was born in 1863. A serious underachiever who graduated from gymnasium at the ripe old age of 21 (rather than the usual 19), it was decided to send him into a career that did not involve independent thinking or initiative.
That's right--German law. Graduating from University (amazingly, given his previous scholastic record, in the normal 4 years!), he served as a One Year Volunteer reserve officer candidate 1888-89, and then took up his duties as a civilian Gerichtsreferendar.
Eventually passing his Second State Examination in 1895, he was advanced to Gerichtsassessor, a civil service position equivalent to an army captain. Alas, his shortcomings were too pronounced, and he allowed himself to be talked into a lateral transfer that year into Military Justice.
Here, at long last, Arthur Horchler found his niche! By 1900 he had advanced to Kriegsgerichtsrat--basically the highest rank anyone in Military Justice could obtain, and equivalent to an army Major or non-legal civil service Amtmann. With no place else to go, he received a courtesy and pay "bump" to Rat IV. Klasse in 1906 that made him a "senior Major" or Amtsrat.
From 1900 until 1920, Horchler served as a Judge Advocate in Baden's 28th Infantry Division, achieving the top Divisional legal position in 1911. Before the war, he received the Zähringen Lion-Knight 1st ca 1906/7, and the Prussian Red Eagle Order 4th Class in 1909. His Reserve and Landwehr Field Artillery career also proceeded nicely, and he ultimately reached Hauptmann der Landwehr II, with a Reserve-Landwehr XX Years Service Cross to wear behind his regular army XXV Cross.
Although I have literally dozens of documents covering 4 generations of his family, from his grandfather through his son, some bozo removed his Iron Cross documents.
I hope you enjoy this very plain, very ordinary looking document--sometimes rarity and looks have no correlation!
022605-- old image hosting site scan gone, for this document, see newer thread at
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...8&postcount=33
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