Gunther Ralls Awards

[Don D.]

... Also, I would think that even admitting to owning TR era awards would have been a bit controversial for a man of Rall's status in the post war German military...

Why, he was awarded them and one would naturally expect him to have his awards. Owning and wearing are two different things.

[Dave Kane]

...the more I think about this, the more Rall's comments in the book don't track. The recent auction of his items was in Germany and very public as I remember. I think he would have somehow found out a bogus set of his awards were being offered for auction? Does this mean they were really his? Recently in the US, a duplicate engraved but unissued example of US astronaut Jim Lovell's Space Medal of Honor was offered for sale on Ebay without his knowledge. Lovell found out in very short order and screamed to high heaven about it (rightly so IMO). Also, I would think that even admitting to owning TR era awards would have been a bit controversial for a man of Rall's status in the post war German military...

In my 47 years +/- of playing, collecting and association with this stuff the one thing that remains common is the suspicion that awardees were duped and items switched to their detriment AND that so called (ORIGINAL) awards were sold over and over and yet again by the recipients......

In this particular situation I wouldn't venture a guess but based in 'history' and as loose as that is...where there's smoke there's fire!