Archive of Orders and decorations awards

[David Müldner]

I take it that the Rangliste dont show the date of an order or decoration award. However for the identification of some portraits of militairy officers I can imagine these dates could come in handy.

Could anyone tell me out of their own experience:

do you use the (german) archives of orders and decorations awards?
which ones do you use?
which ones you know are present? (I can imagine some archives were destroyed during WWII)

David

[PaulChep]

German Archiv

My understanding is that most German Army Officer records for WW1 and before were destroyed during WWII. Also it has been my recent experience that the German Archiv in Aachen German will only release records to next of kin or if you could prove the person has been dead for 30 years.

[David Müldner]

My understanding is that most German Army Officer records for WW1 and before were destroyed during WWII. Also it has been my recent experience that the German Archiv in Aachen German will only release records to next of kin or if you could prove the person has been dead for 30 years.

Paul,

Thanks. Maybe my question was somewhat vague. My interest in this thread regarded the archive of the individual order, not of the army officers. Would e.g. the Principality of Schaumburg-Lippe have an archive of the Kreuz für Treue Dienste. If they had, was it destroyed in WWII or still available today?

I am looking for members who have experience in these kinds of research, if any.

[Dave Danner]

The State Archives of the Grand Duchy of Hesse in Darmstadt were destroyed in WW2, so no Hessian records are available. Records of the archives in Schwerin for the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin are spotty. When Neal O'Connor was doing the research for his aviator series, there were no public records for the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, but he was given access to records privately held.

The records of the Duchy of Anhalt were destroyed in WW2. Records for the Saxon duchies are mixed. There are records for Altenburg, Meiningen and Coburg & Gotha, but there are gaps in various rolls.

O'Connor also found no records for the two Reuss prinicipalities in the archives in Greiz and Gera. I don't believe there are complete Hamburg rolls.

I don't think there is an extant Prussian archives. As for the rest:

Baden - Badische Generallandesarchiv, Karlsruhe
Bavaria - Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv, München
Brunswick - Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Wolfenbüttel
Bremen - Staatsarchiv Bremen
Hohenzollern - Staatsarchiv, Sigmaringen
Lippe-Detmold - Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv, Detmold
Lübeck - Hansestadt Lübeck Archiv
Mecklenburg-Strelitz - Mecklenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv, Schwerin
Saxe-Altenburg - Staatsarchiv Weimar, Aussenstelle Altenburg
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha - Staatsarchiv Coburg; Staatsarchiv Weimar, Aussenstelle Gotha
Saxe-Meiningen - Thüringisches Staatsarchiv, Meiningen
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach - Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar
Saxony - Staatsarchiv, Dresden
Schaumburg-Lippe - Niedersächsisches Staatsarchiv, Bückeburg
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt - Staatsarchiv, Rudolstadt
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen - Staatsarchiv, Rudolstadt
Waldeck - Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Marburg
Württemberg - Militärarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart