Any Ideas on This Cross w/Swords (opinions appreciated) *

[Nick Carraway]

Leroy,
How do we know S&L was or was not producing? I'm trying to follow this thread and my biggest question is do we have anything more here than stories and logical ideas? I don't think I am seeing any new proof here. Am I lost? Please help me understand.
Thanks,
Nick

[Leroy]

Nick - It is my understanding, from an e-mail to me this morning, that the Managing Director of S&L personally confirmed to Hans Günter that the owner had taken the tools.

[Nick Carraway]

Thanks, that's an important piece of information. Still doesn't tell us when that tooling was setup and by whom, but important. The leap to Souval I'm not sure we have that yet either unless you are hoarding more critical information, counselor! Time for discovery...

[Leroy]

No discovery from me! I asked Hans Günter to clarify what he was saying. He did so in German. I translated it, but then sent the translation back to him to make sure it was accurate (he reads English better than he writes it) and he confirmed. I'm sure, if asked, that he would do the same here.

I guessed Souval and agree that connection is not yet fully established. Might not be it at all. Others here, though, who have looked at Souval closer than I have, and who are much more knowledgeable about it, also believe that there was some sort of connection. How far it went is not known for sure, and the players are all long gone, but it still makes sense to me that if the tools were taken from S&L and ended up somewhere back in use, it would have been in someplace "safer" than Ludenscheid.

[Dietrich Maerz]

Nick - It is my understanding, from an e-mail to me this morning, that the Managing Director of S&L personally confirmed to Hans Günter that the owner had taken the tools.

I am in contact with Hansgünter in plain old German and what he wrote me is this:

"He heard from the current Managing Director of S&L. She told him before 1950 one of the owners of S&L took all the documents and tools out of the company. She would not know what happened with the tools."

Hansgünter also wrote me that he had the impression that she did not want to talk about the tools. For him it is clear that they were used after the war and he also wants me to say that he does not think that the tools went to Souval.

In the light of the proven post-war activities of S&L it is only logical (especially when you have Greens and Communists in the German parliament and one supplies the Bundesverdienstkreuz) to state that the tools disappeared from S&L and that is that. I do not believe that one little bit, also in the light of my earlier inquiries with S&l.

Dietrich

[Bob Hritz]

I know, from the words of Ludwig Umlauff, managing director of Rudolf Souval, that the firma Souval bought or otherwise obtained working dies and equipment from other wartime manufacturers. Souval was left alone by occupying Soviet forces and managed to have a flourishing business in the war souvenir business. The American, Ken Lane, who was a US soldier remained in Vienna after the war, and purchased from Souval, and a number of German makers, his inventory. Where original surplus was not available, Ken Lane has items made to his specifications. He never revealed, to me, his sources. Ken Lane and firma Rudolf Souval had hundreds of thousands of originals items back in the 1960s. I used to buy 1000 various decorations at a time, from Souval. Many were made by other Vienna makers. I recall the hundreds of Krim and Kuban shields and driver badges that were not Souval products. The original material was far less expensive than anything that had to be made post-war. As stocks diminished, modern made material was offered at higher prices, but both firma Souval and Ken Lane were doing more business with collectors and flourishing in the smaller trade at higher prices.

Ken Lane had many original SS cuff titles and when he ran out, he had new ones made and would custom make them to order. I regret never buying a 'Dumbkopf' cuff title, but I could buy an original for the same price or less. Ken had original cuff titles with 6 strand borders and a lot of the unused black 6 strand band material. This was all from the original maker. Sadly, we do not know that maker was. That is why there is much confusion about the authenticity of 6 strand border SS cuff titles. He did not have the original templates, so the post-war embroidered bands are far inferior to the original wartime production. I still have one of Ken Lane's catalogs in my collection. I fondly recall my correspondence with Ken and with Herr Unlauff from Souval.

So, I have the belief that Souval had acquired and used various working dies from other makers. However, the telltale Souval hardware and finish was evident on the newly made products. Herr Umlauff was frank and candid about wartime and post war production, if you took the time to know him and ask questions in a respectful and polite manner.

Bob Hritz

[Nick Carraway]

Thanks Bob, as always very interesting.

I'm still wondering where we are with the S&L story. Is it third-hand hearsay or second-hand?

[Dietrich Maerz]

Considering the fact that the managing director was born in 1968 I would think that she has no first nor second hand and not even third hand knowledge about the time in question. For everybody who knows the political climate in Germany nowadays it is 100% clear that nobody at S&L would make any other statement than what she did.

[Leroy]

Dietrich - I know that you choose to believe that none of this is true because you think that S&L is just looking for a way to cover itself, given the "atmosphere" in modern Germany. You take the reluctance of the current Director to discuss what happened to the tools as proof of this.

How, then, do you explain Hans Günter's earlier statement that it has
"always" been known in Germany that S&L did not keep the tools? That seems to me to be a very important statement and I do not understand why you treat it so insignificantly.

Whether or not it was Souval which got the tools is just a sidelight to this discussion.

[Nick Carraway]

Leroy,

I respect you greatly, you know that. And this is not a dig but "everybody knows" is not a defense. I think we need to be very clear with what we know, what we don't know, and what we think. And for me to know requires an evidentiary standard greater than hearsay. It IS significant to have this info from people closer than we. But the weight of the information has to be balanced with its distance from the original source material. Unless there is other corroborating evidence.

Most humbly,
Nick

[speedytop]

Hi Leroy,

"... and if S&L didn't have the item in its stock , it could get the item for the customer with a delivery time of just a few weeks ..."

I cannot find this in the REVUE article! Is it your interpretation or assumption?

The sentence with the four weeks is combined with the desription of the delivery of medal ribbons.

Only the next sentence refers to S&L. And there is written, that he send the customers directly to his main supplier S&L, if he, Knoth, don't have the wanted items.
Do you really think, that he sent them to S&L and after arrival at S&L the customer had to wait up to 4 weeks? And Knoth knows it and he send them nevertheless to S&L?

Therfore I cannot follow your conclusion "... really meant that S&L in those times was itself not newly manufacturing items..."

Wishful thinking does not help us; we need facts.

Uwe

[Bob Hritz]

My information is from my personal correspondence with Ludwig Umlauff and Ken Lane. I had huge files of correspondence which, unfortunately, were lost when my house was destroyed.

Bob Hritz

[Legion Condor]

Hello collectors,

I want to again say very clearly that there have always been stories at the tools of the S & L and are. But not 100% facts.

What we really know is that were produced with the tools after 1945 Order. That's all we know and we will unfortunately never really know. Everything else will just be thoughts.

S & L will never admit that she herself produced with the tools after 1945. And there is no time to witness more.

So just stories stay with us.

Greeting Hans Günter

[Legion Condor]

Too bad I find that my theme to the S & L copies is lost.
The collector should see what is good and bad. I just wanted to prove that the tools were used for the Spain crosses a very long time.

Too bad all the work with the images in vain.

Greeting Hans Günter

[Dietrich Maerz]

How, then, do you explain Hans Günter's earlier statement that it has
"always" been known in Germany that S&L did not keep the tools? That seems to me to be a very important statement and I do not understand why you treat it so insignificantly.

I just asked Hansgünter what he really meant with that and he confirmed that it is just a rumor without any proof whatsoever.

I should remind you that I was also living in Germany up until 1999 and since then have been back at least three times every year. I have very good contacts as you know and nobody ever mentioned to me that the tools of S&L were removed from the company after the war. However, I heard numerous times that S&L was producing after the war - and that is not just a rumor!

I do not understand why you treat this so insignificantly?

Here is my take on this and other "I heard this and that has happened ..":

One can read every day here on WAF that one should only believe the piece and not the story. That, of course, is a very one-sided statement since there are enough stories which are true and significant. By true I mean they can be veryfied together with other evidence. Example: if just one guy would have told about Schloss Klessheim one might be very sceptical. However, when it checks out with a lot of other similar stories plus the originality of the pieces plus the historic evidence then it is a very significant story.

However, sometimes it seems that a story -any story - is immediately believed as gospel the moment it fits a pre-formed opinion or theory. Very often such a story is something that is realted to hear-say, several people or even generations removed from the time it was reported as "happened", or borderline rumor (or even a rumor, as Hansgünter just confirmed). Based on such a "fitting" story new theories are build up and several threads or months later it has mutated to a "truth" that needs to be taken seriously into consideration.

I do not "choose to believe", I am just sceptical and in this case I take into consideration the overall situation of the managing director. She did not take her job as an historian of the company but with the goal to make a profit for the current owners. Her answer is the only locigal answer in order to protect the company.

By the way, there is this other rumor from a former member here. He stated several times that he was a witness to the sale of the S&L dies in the 1980's (???) in London? Sold again? Or rumor?
There is also the report by Gordon Williamson when he wanted to buy a Knights Cross at S&L and he was asked "what type?" He concluded that at that time S&L still made the Knights Cross with swastika because they sold it.

Past experience in our hobby, especially in connection with S&L, has taught me to be extremely careful. To believe without checking every rumor and/or every new "story" and run with it is very dangerous.

I know that that was not Hansgünter's intention to create a new "collector's lore."He only wants to rise the alert level regarding the S&L fakes of the Spanish Cross and that he did convincingly! Thank you for that!

Dietrich