POW awards entry

[leibregiment]

Has anyone seen the awards entry on a soldbuch cut out and replaced by the captors (In this case the French) and so late 1947!!
........welcome your thoughts

[leibregiment]

2

[Ian Jewison]

I remember this one....I always presumed they cut the awards out themselves and then perhaps they were re-entered in PoW camp or by themselves post war.

Of course, the Russian's classed the more awards you had, the larger a mass murderer you were! So it is not unusual to see award pages or certain awards cut out.

I have a few examples of this.

/Ian

[leibregiment]

Cheers Ian, Interesting they kept him to 1947....any thoughts on that?

[walter1010de]

If the POWs were allowed to keep their Soldbuch as an ID they were very often denacified.

And, especially for the soldiers captured by the Russians and the French, the soldiers threw the awards and award-pages in the Soldbuch away before being captured (if possible).
I know a few veterans who told me that holders of the GC or even the IC I were at once shot by the Russians after they were captured.
My grand-uncle told me about a sergeant and officers candidate who was told by a Russian soldier to throw his IC I away after capture. The German NCO refused and was then at once shot dead...

Being a POW some of them did the re-entry of their awards, but that was IMO not too common.

[Ian Jewison]

You will also see from time to time a copy of the Soldbuch on a single or double sided piece of paper from when they were in PoW camp.

On occasions, depending on who captured you, you could retain your Soldbuch. Some people of course hid theirs or said they had lost it!

However generally if captured by the English it was taken from you and you did not get it back. The Soldbücher from German PoW's were sent back to Germany in the 1950's. I tried to track down where as my Uncle would have liked his back, however every establishment that were in the chain knew nothing about it.


/Ian

[Ian Jewison]

Interesting they kept him to 1947....any thoughts on that?

Could have been a particularly nasty officer, or a member of the NSDAP or Waffen SS Reserve....could have been simply that was when his name came out the hat to go home! Difficult to say.

[leibregiment]

Very interesting, so there is a big pile of passes somewere?..........has anyone done a study of what happened to the passes post war?

[JUNGCO]

You will see many of the "french" captures were kept for two years. It was so they could be worked. Sort of reparations for the war I guess. The Englich and Americans did this to some extent also.
Jeff

[leibregiment]

Thanks Guys, good information