Hindenburg Cross

[Fred Borgmann]

The Hindenburg Cross or World War I Honor Cross is one of the most common awards in the world and yet one of the more unusual in that while it was issued during the Nazi era it was for service predating the Nazis and does not carry any swastika symbols. The award was not automatic and every recipient had to apply for the award. The recipient also did not have to live in or go to Germany to get his award as the following award document illustrates. Many years ago there was a dealer on the gun show circut in southeastern Wisconsin who always had a lot of stuff priced well beyond reason. He rarely sold anything that I was watching so I would often thank him at shows for taking such good care of my collection when referring to his stock! He mostly bought out of estates and one of the items he had for years is the following Hindenburg coss, award document and a Milwaukee Herold reporters badge which he said was all from the same estate and which I will illustrate here. First the award document which is named to an employee of the city of Milwaukee and was presented in Chicago. Sounds unusual to me, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Fred Borgmann]

Next is the cross and his reporters badge. The badge is quite old and could date as far back as 1890 or so. Checking the back issues on microfilm I could not find any mention of anyone getting this award and could not find any articles with Mr. Oetzmann's by line. I should note here that by lines were rare in this paper at that time and all it's reporters were part timers so I can not verify that the reporter badge actually belongs with this group. I am sure that old John would not have lied about this group all being from one estate. I do suspect however that the Herold would intentionally not have reported such an award since they tried not to link themselves too closely with a government which at that time was already controversial.

[JensF.]

THATS a HAMMER! Would be one of the rarest Hindenburg Crosses ever with THAT document! Congratulations!!!

[Daniel Krause]

Thats great!

Best regards

Daniel

[Fred Borgmann]

Thanks guys! It's good to have knowledgeable collectors confirm my thoughts on this grouping.