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

[Andreas Klein]

And swaz souvenirs could be taken out of the box in the camps where the soldiers had to remove everything from their uniform.

[Brian S]

You seriously dont have a clue to the reality on the ground. Black market was thriving postwar for several years. You can keep posting whatever notices and examples you like but you are distorting the reality of every day life.

[Brian S]

Maybe it was verboten but the sign was there because it was so wide spread. People knew who they could trust.

[Brian S]

My mother and father met at a black market home where people traded.

[Brian S]

You have no clue man....

[Andreas Klein]

You seriously dont have a clue to the reality on the ground. Black market was thriving postwar for several years. You can keep posting whatever notices and examples you like but you are distorting the reality of every day life.

Well, i'm german and i can see every day what kind of problems we still have with our past and nazism ... and i had the honour to speak with Mr. Assmann who told me as eye witness how war ended in Lüdenscheid.

For sure there was a black market .... and more than one familiy traded their awards for food and cigarettes but really ask yourself if your goal was to buy a knights cross in 1946 when you didn't know where to get some food?

And a black market betwen soldiers and civilians is clearly different from an industrial awards production with sales catalogs and so on.

[Andreas Klein]

You have no clue man....

For sure and you have it ... so show me your documents and photos proving all the stuff from the Bundesarchiv and the Impertial War museum is nuts and show me your LDO shops of 1947 where german and allied soldiers bought their knights crosses.

[Leroy]

It is the (seemingly) never-ending argument, but it appears to me that Herr Assmann, who absolutely "lived it" just a few hundred yards from S&L, and who said about actual new factory production immediately after the war by S&L: "Herr Luck could be difficult to deal with, but he was not stupid" would have been in the best position to know. Workers assembling pieces in their homes and bartering/selling leftover stock and pieces assembled from leftover parts as souvenirs to occupation troops is one thing, but actual full-blown commencement of new production by the factory is something else entirely. Does anyone really think that would have been ignored?

[sdesember]

I don´t think it´s too much of stretch to imagine firms to OPENLY assemble any wartime leftovers and to OPENLY have a full-blown production using in addition POST-WAR materials for manufacturing anything new with swastica immediately after the war with the intention to sell them either to the Allied Forces, Veteran Organisations or museums/collectors. Maybe, assembling leftover items with a swastica on them were seen as a lesser "crime" than an intentional full-blown production by the occupying forces if caught. However, were not both activities were, after all, by definition, seen as activities in the manufacturing decorations which originated from the NS era and which was, then, forbidden?

[Leroy]

I don´t think it´s too much of stretch to imagine firms to OPENLY assemble any wartime leftovers and to OPENLY have a full-blown production using in addition POST-WAR materials for manufacturing anything new with swastica immediately after the war with the intention to sell them either to the Allied Forces, Veteran Organisations or museums/collectors.

I honestly don't think anyone posting here in favor of immediate postwar new manufacturing (i.e. die-striking, etc.) has a true feeling for how despised that symbol was and for how long, regardless of "economic miracles" or anything else, that feeling persisted. Maybe that's just a convenient mechanism (because we all here enjoy the collecting of this material) to excuse what was done in the name of that symbol and make us feel better as collectors. There was no "group hug" at the end of this war, but we are more comfortable to pretend that there was.

Did feelings "relax" over time? Of course they did, especially as the occupation forces, and, even more importantly, their commanders, contained fewer and fewer actual combat veterans with personal memories of what they had seen and experienced. We entered the era of the politician/soldier, when those commanders let things slide in the interest of having a new bulwark against the Russians. Today, it is commonplace to see veterans (the few that are left) from both sides, mingle, talk and share a drink. They are all more philosophical now. But that is NOT the way it was in the immediate postwar era. We have members here, from countries who fought Nazism during the war, who attend OdR meetings and who have become friends with those individuals. That's a great thing....but that's not how it was in the immediate postwar time.

This is as hard to grasp as the concept of pre-computer life for most people.

Soldiers always want souvenirs...but why do you think the Revue article didn't appear until May, 1953? Sure, there was probably brand new production (involving die-striking) at some time before that article was actually published, but do you think such brand new production was already in full swing in the immediate postwar years or do you think leftovers were sufficient to supply the true demand for a long time?

Unfortunately, I'm afraid I already know the answer to that question here and it makes me very sad.

[sdesember]

Forgive me my ignorance, however, why would it be important to differentiate in which year, i.e., immediate or latter, were a particular award were made in the post-war era?

[Leroy]

Because, my friend, if you are trying to get it right, you should be trying to get it all right.

[sdesember]

I see.

PS: (But, I don't think anyone is willing to pay a postwar item for a price of an original one, regardless of whether the item were immediate or latter made in the postwar.)

[Leroy]

I see.

PS: (But, I don't think anyone is willing to pay a postwar item for a price of an original one, regardless of whether the item were immediate or latter made in the postwar.)

I have always agreed with this 100%. AND I would love to figure out a way to detect, with certainty, what is postwar, whether it is just postwar assembled or 100% postwar newly made, and I will not stop in the effort to do that. It may not be possible to achieve this, but I know we will never have any chance to achieve it unless we first correctly understand that period.

[kraut72]

Gentry

The real delight the research what leads to the truth.