S&l ??

[Leroy]

Peter,
It's very good to see these things! Maybe, at last, we are "getting there".
Regards,
Leroy

[Brian S]

The Cross Leroy posted could easily have been left over stock without hardware. When Steinhauer, or former employees, began refitting leftover planchetts and remaking awards, post-war, the fit, polish, and finish were definately inferior to the wartime produced awards. I have yet to see a post-war Steinhauer award that is up to the quality of the wartime produced awards in fit, polish, and finish. That is why I struggle with many of the current beliefs with Steinhauer Knight's Crosses, but do not delude myself into believing that Steinhauer did not produce post-war Knight's Crosses.

Bob Hritz

You and me both Bob!

[Thomas Durante]

Hi guys,

We started a similar thread over at the GCA forum in the hopes of getting some more collectors involved, here is the thread:

http://www.germancombatawards.com/th...5549#post75549

A few good pieces of info have already come to light over there. First is Andreas' talks with the Assmann firm which sheds a lot of light on the business sense in the first few years after the war. Quite interesting.

Also, Phil DeBock was able to identify a few more of the Heer badges. He says the Bronze IAB is made by FLL and the Silver IAB is made by GWL. He also confirmed my thoughts on the PAB as GWL and he said that the silver PAB is also a GWL. He is trying to identify the GAB and I will also look tonight at this one.

One other thing, I noticed the flak badge also appears to be an S&L. Marc should be able to confirm this, but the eagle's beak looks to be S&L.

So, this is just more confirmation and fits in perfectly with the Ludenscheid based makers theory for these boards.

Tom

[juoneen]

article how german soldier bought his medals 1959

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/19/europe/cross.php
Just thought id attach this here, it shows an actual german soldier who repurchased his awards in 1959.

[Don D.]

Two unanswered questions- 1. How much leftover stock was on hand? Did they typically keep 1000s of extras around? and 2- What was the demand? I'm sure the occupation troops were more interested in the stuff than the guys that fought their way across Europe.

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Don,

Well, to answer your first question, I think it was quite possible to have literally hundreds if not thousands of badges left over at the wars end, by just one company alone. I posed the following scenario:

If you think about an order of badges that was put into S&L on April 25th, 1945 for 1,000 bronze close combat clasps (as an example). The order was produced, but due to logistics and such, it was never shipped out to the PK by the end of the war. Well, how long would it take for S&L to disseminate and/or "sell" to souvenier hungry GI's? I would think it would take them literally years for them to get rid of all 1,000 CCCs. It is quite possible in my mind that a large company such as S&L or Deumer, whose main business was the supply of medals and badges, would easily have shipments created and ready for delivery on at least a weekly basis.

As far as what the demand was, I personally think that the "souvenier crazy GI's" mantra is a bit overstated, but no doubt existed to some extent. I think that most soldiers got their stuff the old fashioned way, and traded it back and forth with eachother. Those soldiers that were located close to Ludenscheid might have been able to score something from these factories by buying from employees and such, but I doubt it was widely known and easily could have taken years to find enough soldiers who were actually willing to buy souveniers in this fashion. We have all seen the pictures of piles of helmets just tossed aside, or piles of swastika-laden flags being burned, etc. There was a lot of this stuff around. I also think that what Skip says is true about forbidding soldiers to bring anything with a swastika back and that the harbors in England are full of badges, weapons, helmets, etc from guys throwing their stuff overboard. I have heard the same thing about NY harbor.

Tom

[Leroy]

From excellent information posted before on this Forum by member 'Robert T', it appears that the 86th Infantry ("Blackhawk') Division stayed in Ludenscheid for about 5 days (April 14-19, 1945). After doing some (very unsophisticated) research on Google, I found a reference from an American soldier in another U.S. unit (75th Infantry Division), who said:

" We were ordered to Ludenscheid in April of 1945 as an army of occupation. Sometime in June we were shipped to Camp Detroit, to be shipped out by the point system." (Frank Comito, CO Driver, C Co 289th Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division.)


I also found some references, in passing, to UK troops (including some Belgian units) going to Ludenscheid as occupation forces in the "early Summer" of 1945.

Don't know if this can be used as "hard and fast" information, but it MIGHT be that U.S. forces were in Ludenscheid for approximately 2 months before being relieved by UK forces, which eventually became the long-term occupying forces.

P.S. While Tom's casual example of an April 25 order date won't work (the PKZ actually ordered ceasation of all production on April 18, a few days after Ludenscheid's capture), his point is extremely well taken. The capture of Ludenscheid on April 14 would certainly give credence to the idea that badges awaiting shipment could simply never make it out.

[Dietrich Maerz]

Just one minor correction which might have an impact on the distribution. Other than the highest orders badges and medals were not shipped to the PKZ. Even the DK were shipped to supreme command level. EK1 and EK2 (and I would think all kind of CC, IAB, PAB ,...) down to Division level.

Only the RK and up came from the PKZ to the awardee.

[Leroy]

This is indeed very interesting information. Thanks, Dietrich!

I would think that in the last few weeks it would have been very difficult to have any co-ordinated shipping schedule at all, especially to commands which would have been, out of necessity, constantly shifting location.

In his very interesting autobiography ("Soldat"), Siegfried Knappe (a General Staff officer) describes multiple and rapid command movements, with officers beginning to look for new possible headquarters almost as soon as they had just moved in to their current locations.

[Leroy]

I have just, in the last couple of minutes, found this excerpt (on Amazon.com UK) (also courtesy of Google!) from Alan Beadle's 2002 book on German awards. Although Beadle (who I have never personally dealt with) certainly has a chequered reputation on this and other forums, the following recital is very interesting, especially as it tends to mirror exactly what Bob Hritz has told us about the types of boards which started this thread:


(All from "GERMAN COMBAT AWARDS 1935-1945"-ISBN-10: 0954385101 )

QUOTE:
With the end of the Second World War in Germany in May 1945, large numbers
of German Orders and Medals were destined to fall into Allied hands. These
were to come from two sources: those taken directly from prisoners and the
dead and those from factories, shops and military stores. Of the great
medal producing centres of Lüdenscheid and Gablonz, Lüdenscheid, whilst
originally captured by the Americans, passed into the British Zone of
Occupation, whereas Gablonz ceased being a German town, became Czech and
then almost vanished from the post war medal manufacture and collecting
scene.

The factories of Lüdenscheid suffered some looting by US troops but, once
the tide of war had passed through and life in the ruins resumed some
degree of normality, the badge manufacturers began to realise that their
remaining stocks of German awards were popular souvenir items, particularly
with the British troops. As a result, display boards of badges were
produced. The firm of Steinhauer and Lück was a prime producer of these.

Normally on grey or brown card, these boards consisted on average of 15
badges and medals. The awards themselves were often numbered on the board
below and a written description on Steinhauer and Lück headed paper
accompanied the board. It would seem that the more you paid the bigger the
boards and the more numerous the awards you received. Some wooden boards
contained 50 different awards, including Knight's Crosses and Spanish
Crosses with the description neatly engraved on brass plaques below. In
the past these boards have often been described as "Salesmen's Sample
Boards" which they never were. One sure way of recognising them is by the
use of miniature size ribbons on full size awards.

For the British collector, other sources of supply were the naval stores of
the North German ports and the Reichs Chancellery in Berlin which was
finally entered, with Russian permission, by the British and Americans in
July 1945. Crates of awards had been used by the Waffen-SS defenders to
block windows during the storming of the Chancellery in April 1945 and in
July huge quantities of awards still remained to be collected up. Long
Service Medals, Eastern People's Awards, Iron Crosses, War Service Crosses
and Wound Badges including the 20th July version, were the most common
medals found at the Chancellery.

Meanwhile, back in Lüdenscheid, business was booming. The boards sold by
Steinhauer and Lück contained examples of their products, but also pieces
from other Lüdenscheid manufacturers who had made awards not produced by
Steinhauer and Lück, such as the GWL (Gebrüder Wegerhoff Lüdenscheid)
Luftwaffe Ground Combat Badges. As a result, certain unmarked awards on
Steinhauer and Lück cards cannot be assigned to this factory, although some
badges, such as the unmarked U-Boat Badge with wide vertical pin is taken
to be a Steinhauer and Lück production.
ENDQUOTE

I cannot personally vouch for this information, but it certainly seems to fall in line with what we have all been discussing.

[Robert T.]

Leroy,

This is quite an impressive post... It seems to summarize everything perfectly.

_____________
Robert

[Leroy]

All thanks to you, Robert! Your postings on this Forum and over at GCA prompted me to do a little checking.

Good work!
Regards,
Leroy

[Robert T.]

Thanks,
_________
Robert

[Sal Williams]

I think the speculation on how much was left and how fast it could sell is groundless. I can easily see one soldier in Luedensheid buying and trading with vast numbers of supply soldiers and using up leftover stocks incredibly quickly. I do not think one can say which scenario is true or even more likely. I also don't see how one can make a call as to how souvenir hungry the troops were without asking vets who were there and many of them to get a rounded picture. If this is just taken as interesting information and speculation that is fine but if this is going to start entering the realm of facts or even leaning one way or the other I have to object.

@ Bob, about the fit etc. with the post war S&L KCs, do you have a time line for that (meaning the very first post war KCs already suffered from poor finishing/fit?) I don't know that my question is answerable actually but I am wondering why, if it was the same workers and same supply, that the quality would suffer instantly after the war ended? Might the very first post war crosses be indistinguishable from the originals?
I do wish you had pics of the other SKs you had long ago!!! Not one photo somewhere? I guess the digital camera is when people started photoing all their stuff! Thanks for the answers to my previous slew of questions Bob!

Best, Sal

[Robin Lumsden]

I cannot personally vouch for this information, but it certainly seems to fall in line with what we have all been discussing.

Alan Beadle includes a lot of useful anecdotes from the early days of collecting in that book, including information about the Dodkins collection.

It's worth getting a copy, if you don't have one.

http://www.ab-militaria.com/index.shtml

Some of the badges are 'odd', (may even have come from similar boards), but there's a lot of good stuff in there as well.