Knights Cross with OL & Swords

[Sonderkommando]

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Not that it helps the discussion much, but the ribbon on the second set of pics presented is only an EK2 ribbon so value for the set would be without an original RK ribbon.

[tgn]

Love posts like this of possibly really rare items. Thanks for posting.

Tom

[StefanK.]

The rk seems authenic, so does the ol. If i am not mistaken that cross was once owned by a fellow collector who is active on the forum as well, the cross had a odd loop back then and was sold with that loop that later was replaced.....


....and now pops up with a pair of ol and x. I can check my files if that question is of relevance. But anyway, nice combination, original amd rare. To be sure better pocs of the ol would help though.

[feldy]

Thanks to all for your feedback.

[StefanK.]

I just checked my files.
It is indeed the cross I was talking about. It was ofered to me with an odd loop, maybe a replacement but in any case not textbook Juncker loop. Now we have two possiblilities:

1. The one who offered it to me kept the OL+S himself and just put another loop for replacement. Lateron he offered the entire set to another collector.
2. The OL&S were replaced later on.

Everybody should draw his own conclusions

Anyway: At least the RK is a very nice piece and quite probably one of the very first that were produced.

Greetings, Stefan

[StefanK.]

Every follower of this thread who has access to the below mentioned forum, will be quite astonished

https://www.militaria-fundforum.de/f...d-ek/&pageNo=1

[StefanK.]

and that's how it was offered to me several yrs ago....

[Dietrich Maerz]

The OL&S were replaced later on.

I will not make any judgement on the originality of the Swords because that would be foolish for me. However, one can approach the "set" from a more holistic approach. Knowing that the very early Knights Crosses from Juncker were only awarded up to about May 1940 (sure, there might be the one or other outlier) and having the list of the early Knights Cross awardees as well as the ones for the Swords, one can determine to whom this set is supposed to belong to:

- Johannes Blaskowitz
- Albert Kesselring
- Günther von Kluge
- Gerd von Rundstedt
- Hermann Hoth
- Georg-Hans Reinhard
- Werner Baumbach

Well, I think that should make clear that we have a "unnatural pairing" presented to the collector community. Why that is so and why the "assembler" (whoever it might have been) did not think of the possibility that the names could be (easily) checked is strange.

Sure, there is still the possibility of an outlier, but that would just be another "name."

Dietrich

[foxl]

I... However, one can approach the "set" from a more holistic approach....

Dietrich

Dear Dietrich, my first though was in the same direction, there are not much possible holders of that combination.

But I have the problem, that I do not know, what happend to the rewards of these soldiers? There really should be a list available with all, at least high ranks, soldiers with the information who holds the awards (e.g. lost after surrender to foreign forces, lost in action, buried while funeral, still with family, sold in acutions, exhibiting in museums and so on...)

Is that information commonly known under the collecting community or is there a database with that information?

best greetings, fabian

[Dietrich Maerz]

The holistic approach as outlined combined with the facts Stefan presented makes clear, IMHO, that this ‘set’ is put together and did not belong to one of the named soldiers. I don’t think that any deeper investigation would reveal anything else. It would be far more interesting to find out why, after all the time passed, a set of Swords is attached and by whom and when.

I am not saying that it was presented here as a ‘set’, but it clearly not presented separate from each other, implying it belongs together.

The reasoning that one cannot say whether it did not belonged to one of the named soldiers due to missing records and a lack of unbroken testified chain of posession and therefore it could well be so, is used very often but is a basically useless proposition since it proves absolutely nothing. In a reductio ad absurdum one could say it belonged to Hitler and that could be true since there is no documentation otherwise. Working with only known facts and a certain level of propability gives the best results in such cases and rules out wishful thinking.

Dietrich