Gunther Ralls Awards

[Harry]

Last weekend, I got a copy of Gunther Rall's book, signed by the man himself. In it their is an interesting reference to his original awards, and their replacements!

[Harry]

2

[Harry]

3.

[Douglas Jr.]

The true warrior does not care about medals and awards... very interesting statement.

[Jørgen E]

Very interesting! Thank you for posting!

[vonStubben]

3.

I find this very interesting:

"But we rapidly get hold of genuine replacements for the missing decorations so that I am able to escort the coffin on the day of the funeral as required."

Now,.........did he mean genuine TR orders, or did he mean authorized replacement awards??

Very interesting!

Chuck

[clevischi]

Really nice item!

[Harry]

Exactly Chuck Now, maybe some of his meaning was lost in translation, but it is an interesting statement.

[StefanK.]

very interesting. especially because some of his "original" awards were auctioned last year.... !?!?

[Tiger 1]

Uh Oh!

[rfleming32]

If my memory serves me right, some of his medals were sold by a German auction house in the past year. It included a flight clasp and an EK1 as I recall. If I am right, they must have been selling what he put together after the war. They did not mention that. It sold as a group for 16 or 24 thousand euro's I think. I think I still have the catolog - will check.

[vonStubben]

Does anyone have Kurt Braetz or Rall's contact information in order to ask him directly? It would be very interesting to know the facts about this.

Chuck

[ritterkreuz1945]

The true warrior does not care about medals and awards... very interesting statement.

Where does that quote come from?

[Pierre]

If I do remember his awards sold by Thies last year were:
-one EKI
-one EKII
-one german cross in Gold
-one fighter flight clasp in silver.
plus pictures

It is very common to find in real groupings two EKI (even my girlfriend's grandfather had two, one regular EKI and one EKI with screwback), and why not an extra german cross in gold; remember Wurmheller's grouping sold a couple of weeks ago by a famous dealer: the DKiG was absolutely mint with no patina at all. I suppose that this one was a replacement.

As for Rall's silver fighter clasp it is logical this one didn't disappear as he didn't wear it after having received the gold grade. It could have stayed home until the auction.

But as Stefan says nowadays nothing is sure anymore. If you are lucky enough to buy a "grouping" directly from the holder check all the stuff as if you were on a show: I know a knights cross holder who got all his medals (he came back home with absolutely everything in 1945...) replaced by a "nice" guy who proposed him to frame them for him....

Also very interesting in this book is how Gunther Rall managed to get back his oakleaves and sword document in...1990 or 1991. By the way this one isn't Rall's property anymore but bought by a lucky european collector.... . Not me.

Pierre

[Luftm40]

I also briefly owned a documented silver Day Fighter Clasp of Rall's...this was 10 years ago. It was different than the one in the more recent auction