So you want to know about S&L Dk's?

[Leroy]

Tom,
First, let me apologize for the very many typos in my last post. I have tried to correct them, but I am running into severe problems when I try to go back with the "edit" function. My daughter's cat ran across the keyboard multiple times while I was typing and I didn't review before posting!

Again, S&L may not have made these, but the fact is that mint condition DK's appear with other identifiable, and also mint, S&L products in the photograph of British soldiers from the Imperial War Museum, and we know that the British were the ones who occupied Ludenscheid, and we further know that many of the items in the IWM collection are mint S&L products. Where did these come from? Doesn't someone need to look into this?

I disagree that information from original sources is not to be trusted, although I do agree that the "right" questions need to be asked and the answers evaluated, with follow-up, by a person who has a technical background. You would be the perfect person to do it and I honestly believe that if you don't do it, and don't also speak seriously with the older dealers and collectors in this hobby, before they are all gone, you will have missed the only opportunity which still exists to capture the real sequence of events and transform "forensic" data into fully reliable "historic" data. Again, could FLL (just as an example) have made these? It was based in Ludenscheid and used hollow rivets. Other examples of its products, in mint condition (and some of which were identified by you) appeared on these very boards, which are now disputed. Maybe FLL, or some other company, made some of the parts and the ones made were set up to use hollow rivets when assembled. Isn't the type of rivet used linked to what has been placed on the part being rivetted before assembly? Does anyone know why S&L began the use of hollow rivets at all, whenever it started using them? A pretty radical change for it, it would seem, if it was still using components manufactured solely in-house.

Except for the photo from the IWM, which I find compelling, I have no personal knowledge of when these "first showed up". Detlev Niemann didn't show a photo of one in the last edition of his book, but he was willing to put his COA on these particular ones, which were auctioned after that was published. Again, I suggest that you may wish to speak to some older collectors with an interest in DK's, to find out the earliest date. Unfortunately, this Forum is not necessarily the place to find them.

I look forward to the new para book and I'm sure it will be another useful tool
in our armory!
Best,
Leroy

[George L]

Tom, I'm not convinced the S&L DK's are genuine pre-45, either, but 1970's? No way, man. If you look at the S&L 57 Dk's made during that time, it's clear that the gold DKig was not produced then as the quality kept getting worse, nor was that wide pin used much past the early 1960's. I'd wager that gold version pre-dates any of the 57 versions. How? The silver Dk with swaz I posted, I think, were being made concurrently with the 57 new forms as they're much closer than the gold one posted. How far back (pre-57) is anyone's guess, of course.

Rudiger's post of the para shows they did in fact use solid and hollow rivets, simultaneously! The earliest luft 57 new form badges had solid rivets while the earliest DK's, with wide pin (new form) had hollow. Speaking of para's, I can see how comparisons can be made there, but this is more like comparing apples and oranges to me.

My guess is S&L was in the process of producing the dies and/or parts at the end of the war, and then starting making them right after. This would explain why there's none with any provenance, but yet how they had the tooling in place for their very distinct parts. While it may have provided some revenue to sell to collectors, I'd find it hard to believe they'd create the tooling for such a complex medal just for the collector market, but I could be wrong.

[Leroy]

George,
Those are great observations! Immediate postwar assembly of existing parts might also explain the sloppy rivets.
I still have a question about the one I posted from the "junk box": why are the rivets on that one seemingly different from the other rivets we have seen in this thread? I'm curious to see if anyone has a theory.
Regards,
Leroy

[Thomas Durante]

My guess is S&L was in the process of producing the dies and/or parts at the end of the war, and then starting making them right after. This would explain why there's none with any provenance, but yet how they had the tooling in place for their very distinct parts. While it may have provided some revenue to sell to collectors, I'd find it hard to believe they'd create the tooling for such a complex medal just for the collector market, but I could be wrong.

Hi guys,

George, correct me if I am wrong, but your thought here is that S&L was "producing" these badges immediately post war, right? Doesn't this conflict with Leroy's thoughts that S&L didn't produce anything new for 10 or 15 years after the war's end, but only utilized leftover parts?

I really don't see too much issue with firms producing new dies after the war to create new badges that they didn't happen to make during the war. Didn't Souval do this? We have many badges (including the para badge) that were never made by Souval during the war, but yet were made by them postwar. These include all the LW badges and were clearly made with unique dies (not dies taken from another maker). These are all found with the classic "souval catch", but I am not sure when these first surfaced.

It would be nice if a few more guys like Andreas and Dietrich, etc. would chime in with their thoughts. I feel like Leroy and I are discussing these by ourselves. If we were just going to do that, I would rather do it in person so we could atleast order a few beers to go with the discussion

Tom

[Terry OToole]

carry on guys , i m all ears -- very interesting thread --thank you

[Leroy]

Reviewing again my Post #28 (can't edit now), a large portion of my intended first paragraph got obliterated by accident. I did want to correct this, just by pointing out that there is nothing wrong, and in fact a lot right, with "forensics" data. I have observed in the courtroom countless times, however, when very good forensics data was clarifed by "people input" which changed substantially the initially perceived meaning of the raw data. The data was perfectly valid, but the "people" explanation of "time, place and circumstance" gave information which was absoluterly critical to its interpretation. What I was trying to convey, and why I mentioned this at all, was that many people in this hobby, including many I did not know before (who came over to me at the SOS and introduced themselves when they heard that I was the "infamous Leroy"!) are very concerned about the lack of this "people input". Many are concerned that the hobby is being changed irrevocably, and for the worse, by reliance solely on forensic data without reference to "people input", especially when that input is routinely immediately discounted or rejected or ignored as unreliable (whether, in fact, it is unreliable or not). Feelings are being hurt and many are truly upset, including many who are longtime serious and knowledgeable collectors. This may not bother everybody, but it certainly is something which needs to be conscientiously addressed. This is especially so when the interpretation of the "data" may be quite innocently erroneous or mis-stated (George has just given us a very good example of this by pointing out that S&L, in fact, was noticeably using hollow rivets, not first in the 1970's as intimated earlier ("The fact that these DKs only have hollow rivets make them more like 1970s products rather than 1944 products"), but at least by the late 1950's when it first introduced the 1957 form DK). I still occasionally wonder what effect, if any, was had on the collecting community (vis-a-vis Type "B" crosses and the return of those types by American veterans) by the omission of information in Dietrich's book (again, I am personally 100% sure only by non-malicious oversight) of the fact that American troop first captured Ludenscheid (and, with it, S&L) many weeks before the British came onto the scene as occupiers).

That's all. Thanks.

Leroy

[Leroy]

Hi guys,

George, correct me if I am wrong, but your thought here is that S&L was "producing" these badges immediately post war, right? Doesn't this conflict with Leroy's thoughts that S&L didn't produce anything new for 10 or 15 years after the war's end, but only utilized leftover parts?

Tom,
I know the question was directed at George and he can certainly answer himself, but because you mentioned me, I felt compelled to (rudely) jump in.

When I said S&L didn't produce anything new, I meant that it was my feeling that the DK parts, at the very least, were already in existence at war's end, and all that was done was to put them together (which might explain the ugly rivets). I still feel, however, that at least some of these had, in fact, been completed before the war was over (by either S&L or someone else in Ludenscheid). That's all.
Best,
Leroy

[Thomas Durante]

Hi Leroy,

I don't disagree with you that we need both sides of the story here. Forensic data and eyewitness accounts. But you and I cannot argue both sides of the story alone! Where are all these other guys that are "upset"? Why don't they post their points of view on the forum for all to see and for us to discuss? I don't doubt they exist, but the benefit of the internet has allowed collectors from all over the world to contribute to these discussions. Long gone are the days of just a few dealers and collectors getting together to discuss these mysteries. So why should this be any different with the internet and on the forum??

No one here that I know of argues definatively! I have many examples where I post "in my opinion". And so do you, so its not like we are solving all the mysteries right here. They opinion would be equally valued, but their lack of posting their points of view here and adding to the discussion only ultimately hurts them.

I would also venture to add that the door goes both ways on forensic analysis in the courtroom. Many detectives will tell you that they will trust forensic analysis over eyewitness accounts. The human mind is flawed and does not always remember things accurately. Especially during traumatic events such as war. And after 60 years of time, these reports can be even more unreliable. There are several cases of deathrow inmates being pardoned due to forensic DNA analysis, years after they were found guilty by eyewitness accounts!

Forensics don't lie, its only the interpetation that can be wrong.....

Tom

[Leroy]

Tom,
I agree with you and constantly urge serious collectors to participate.
I truly wish more would.

As to the reliability of human recollection, it is often flawed. But it is often dead right, too. As in a courtroom, we have to approach it with a willingness to evaluate which is not contaminated or compromised from the start by cynicism. I have seen many cases blown right out of the water by a prosecutor's refusal to even consider an interpretation of data which conflicted with his (or her's) dead-set belief that the data could only be interpreted in a way which led to guilt of the defendant.

When your grandfather tells you he "walked 20 miles to school every day in rain or snow", I would let that slide, and smile at the exaggeration, but when he tells you what happened to him in the war, when his senses were on their highest stage of alert, I tend to listen a little more closely. These were the times which were life-altering for them.
Best,
Leroy

[Andreas Klein]

How can we look at the 57 awards and try to make rules with them for a wartime production?

If you look on a map of germany and mark the places with the main award making firms than you will see that we had 4 main areas:

1. Gablonz
2. Berlin
3. Pforzheim
4. Lüdenscheid

What happend to these areas in the war:

1. occupied by russian forces
2. totally bombed out
3. totally bombed out
4. undestroyed and fully intact industrie

So it's not that big surprise that the 57 awards were produced by Deumer or Steinhauer. These firms had still machines, workers and resources to do a restart of production. But does this mean that they used only their own tools and dies? I can't say that .... but imo no. I wouldn't be surprised if dies from Schwerin, Meybauer or Juncker had been evacuated to other firms. The same goes for any other resources and unfinished parts.

Please think about how many different badges are linked to Steinhauer in the last years. Do we have a full area of maker marked para badges so that we really can compare badges which have a chance to be out of the factory from Steinhauer?

To what i know 99% of the para badges or not maker marked and linking a badge by it's setup to maker isn't forensic, it's - with all respect - flimsy. The reason is quite simple we don't know where the setup came from and how many firms used them.

Please remember our forensic desaster we had with the ÜÜ Wernstein maker mark. Whenever this connection was questioned a Wernstein packet with ÜÜ marked GAB was shown and the world was happy about that "unbreakable" evidence. Imo we are doing at the moment the same errors under the label "forensic" by believing a block hinge could be the sign to a certain maker.

The problem is: believing is not knowing ... we can do forensic studies when we have a fixed base for that but i don't see it when we try that with SuL.

There are to many questions marks:
We know the wartime catalog of Steinhauer but they pictured awards which can clearly linked to Schwerin, Berlin. Why?

On the showroom photos from Steinhauer which where made at the Leipzig sales fair we can see another big cross over a knights cross.
A grand cross produced by SuL?


Just a little example for unfinished parts and resources:

Here is a photo i made last year when i visited the former Carl Wild firm. We were allowed to visit the old workplace and with our curiosity we opened some of the old cabinets there. One of the drawers contained hundreds of needles and other setup stuff (only put in plastic bags when the stuff went into the museum).

[Thomas Durante]

Hallo Andreas,

Thanks much for contributing your insight to this thread. Your analysis of the bombed out areas makes good sense that Deumer and S&L would have been logical candidates for production of 1957 products.

Forensic analysis of these badges can sometimes be flawed. But like anything else, it is only 1 piece of a much larger puzzle and you have to keep the mind open to all pieces of evidence. Whether this be eyewitness accounts or forensic analysis. I personally think that forensics are more important than eyewitness accounts, but can respect the views of others who think it is the other way around. The truth is that both avenues are VERY important and should both be considered.

You mention the Weidman/Wernstein mystery and how forensics made it a disaster. I think it is quite the opposite. If you followed that debate closely, you would see that for 40 years the "u with umlats" mark was always associated with Wernstein. This was all based on 1 account by Klietman or some other early researcher and was simply repeated in books and collector word of mouth for 40 years. However, it was THANKS to forensic analysis of the badges that slowly started to unravel that lie. Frank's book on the GABs was first to challenge this maker as probably NOT Wernstein. He based this on several different forensic aspects of badges such as finding different GABs in Wernstein packets, reverse hardware not matching other Wernstein-marked badges, etc. It was only a few years later that Basti made the ultimate discovery of the Weidmann sign on the side of the building that gave irrefutable proof that it was NOT Wernstein.

So you can see that Frank was already challenging 40 years of collector myth. His observations were leading him in a slightly different direction, but he was definately on the road thanks to forensics.

In fact, it is funny enough to state here that he was being led in the slightly the wrong direction because of a sole eyewitness account, that said that mark was for some Vienna conglomorate! That was clearly incorrect because we now know that the mark was definatively for Weidmann.

Tom

[Andreas Klein]

Hi Tom,

i really would like to know what had happened if a "Franz Müller" with 10 postings in the WAF had written the GAB book and had linked unknown badges by the setup to a maker

I fully agree that both ways are important and the main goal of research work is understanding what we find and imo the informations we can get out of the time are very important.

And when i speak to the last living Assmann who saw the end of the war with it own eyes and can tell me from it's own view what british soldiers did with his father's firm than it's of great importance.

And i can't overlock his informations that they destroyed everything with the pistol of a british soldier behind them because they were all "bloody nazis" and had lost the war some weeks ago.

Surely this is no answer to every SuL quesion but when i know what happened to Assmann and look out of his window and see the buildings from Deumer and Steinhauer around 10 meters (Deumer) or 250 meters (Steinhauer) away from the Assmann building than i ask myself how the british soldiers could have forgotten Steinhauer ...

Than he gave us the information that they got in trouble when the prewar Assmann catalog came out as reprint ... they had fear that the german goverment would give such a "nazi" no more orders. Their lawyer had to declare that they had nothing to do with this reprint.

How does this fear of a maker for the new german goverment fit to the believe that SuL didn't care in new german laws and still played "nazi award maker".

I think every crosses collector who is interested in 57awards has seen a 57 cross with wartime (marked) wreath and only the inner core is from the 57 standard. This is a clear evidence that 12 years after the war, there were unfinished parts left.

We all have seen the FLL and Deschler hoard finds in the past few years .... why is it that impossible to accept that in the city of Lüdenscheid there were alot of hoard finds possible in 1945?

[Thomas Durante]

Hallo Andreas,

All good questions, which I don't really have answers for. But I don't doubt for 1 minute that there was a lucrative business for these awards, even in the early days and months right after the war's end. Have you guys asked yourselves WHY these S&L barter boards are found with not only S&L badges, but with GWL, FLL and Assmann badges?? If S&L had such a huge stockpile of badges left over after the war, why would these boards be found with the badges of other makers on them? Wouldn't there be plenty of S&L badges to fill in the "few" boards that were put together for the souvenier trade in the first years of the war? Something just doesn't make sense here.....

In my opinion, S&L recognized early on that there was a lucrative market in souveniers. Enough of a demand so that they went around to all the other Ludenscheid makers and bought up their remaining stocks in my opinion. I hear what you are saying about Assmann's experience and I don't doubt it happened that way. But we also know that S&L still used their wartime dies after the war for many of their 1957 badges. This is at least true for their Para badges and their CCCs, so they didn't have the same experience as Assmann in having to destroy everything with the swastika.

Tom

[Leroy]

I want to thank Andreas for his valuable insight! Through his efforts, we can appreciate, through the eyes and recollections of the real people involved, just what happened to, and in, production centers during and after the war and what large stocks even smaller companies had at the end.

Did S&L acquire all the stocks of everybody else and live off the sales of these badges for years and years? An interesting thought, which, if true, would certainly eliminate any need whatsoever for any actual "new production" postwar by S&L (something that would have been frowned upon by the powers that be). Between all the other Ludenscheid companies and the existing stock of S&L, that would cover just about every type of badge ever produced. Let those employees take everyone's badges home at night and on the weekends and finish the ones that were unfinished (and put on the wrong pins and stamp the wrong marks on some of them). Are those thousands and thousands and thousands of pieces the ones which occupy everyone's collections today? Maybe so. Perhaps that would also explain every variant Deumer, Assmann, FLL, B&NL, etc. etc. badge encountered, as being a postwar assembled (from real parts) piece. Seriously. All the more reason, Tom, for you to go to Ludenscheid with Andreas and find out.

Mystery solved (maybe).

[Thomas Durante]

If these barter boards are from late 1945 and 1946 as many people claim, then it is proof that there was NOT a lot of leftover stock of badges by 1 firm. That is why they have badges from MANY makers on them, not just S&L. I can see a lot of leftover pins and catches because those can be used on MANY things, not just badges. So it is logical that firms has such accoutraments left over in large quantities after the war. But that is a stretch to think there were actually thousands and thousands and thousands of unfinished badges sitting around. Unless a company just happened to be preparing an order when the war ended, I would be hesitant to think that a company would have ANY actual badges just lying around. There was certainly some badges, no doubt about it, but I would think it is less than some imagine. Andreas, did Wild have a pile of unfinished badges lying around too? Or was it just pins and catches, etc.?

As far as going to S&L and asking them what they did postwar is not logical, to me anyway. It would just be a story, like anything else. We ALL know they made badges postwar and may STILL be making reproductions today, who knows. There is a large incentive for them to hide their past, ESPECIALLY IF THEY DID SOMETHING AGAINST THE LAW IN THE FIRST FEW YEARS AFTER WAR. It is like going to them and asking if they are guilty. Ofcourse they will deny it and would you believe them if they told you that? I don't think I would.

As we all know, EVERY prison inmate is innocent, or so they claim

Tom