U-boat War Badge with Diamonds today!

[Norm F]

The late Bill Stump had one made for fun. I have pics someplace only old laptop. it was very well done.

T

Hi Terrence,

It would be great to see that one if you could fire up the old laptop.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

The late Bill Stump had one made for fun. I have pics someplace only old laptop. it was very well done. I wonder what ever happened today his many treasures

T

I just realized there's an image of Bill's fabricated diamond badge in his old U-Boat article from the early 2000s on WAF.
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/asso...at/U-boat1.php

But as it turns out that was a fake U-Boat badge anyway, so he certainly didn't ruin anything in the process. Bill Stump was certainly a great pioneer collector and researcher, but probably everyone in the early days had a fake or two among their "treasures".

[John R.]

Or he was not about to ruin a perfectly good SB tombak U-boat badge and figured that nobody would have known the difference back then.

I think he must have had a devious sense of humor about the hobby, and I say that in a complimentary way.

I never met the man or even corresponded with him, but a collector legend.

John

[Terrence]

Bill had it made so the diamonds would be removable if I remember correctly. I will look for my pics. He helped me out a lot during my early years. I probably have maybe 10 things in my collection from him.

T

[Norm F]

Most listings of "recipients" are in alphabetical order by surname. I thought it might be more useful to show the list of officers in chronological order of when they were awarded the Oak Leaves and hence became eligible. It's important to note this is a really just a list of those eligible for the U-Boat with Diamonds -- that does not mean that they all actually received it.

I've put an asterisk beside those whose attributed badges are shown in this thread (12 so far). I've also noted the 12 who are listed on uboat.net as "U-boat Commanders decorated with U-boat War Badge with Diamonds (U-Boot-Kriegsabzeichen mit Brillanten) located". Considering the overlap in those two lists, there are a total of 17 awards accounted for here, of the eligible 30 (including the non-OL recipient Korvettenkapitän Peter-Erich Cremer). As mentioned in post #153, there's no evidence yet of a U-Boat with Diamonds bestowed after Emmermann's in October, 1943.

...

1943
18 Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Guggenberger - OL January 8, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant
19 Korvettenkapitän Johann Mohr - OL January 13, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant
*20 Korvettenkapitän Georg Lassen - OL March 7, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant, (U-Boat with diamonds supposedly on Oct 22, 1944) - on uboat.net
*21 Admiral Karl Dönitz (special grade) - OL April 6, 1943
*22 Fregattenkapitän Albrecht Brandi - OL April 11, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant, (U-Boat with diamonds July, 1944) - on uboat.net
23 Korvettenkapitän Otto von Bülow - OL April 26, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant, (U-Boat with diamonds May, 1943) - on uboat.net
24 Korvettenkapitän Robert Gysae - OL May 31, 1943
25 Korvettenkapitän Werner Henke - OL July 4, 1943 as Kapitänleutnant
*26 Korvettenkapitän Carl Emmermann - OL July 4 1943 as Kapitänleutnant, (U-Boat with diamonds on October 1, 1943) - on uboat.net

...

Here's something interesting.

Korvettenkapitän Robert Gysae was an Oakleaves recipient on May 31, 1943 and therefore potentially eligible for the U-Boat in Diamonds. On the latest Weitze update there are two Gysae groupings for sale "directly from the family" -- one with wartime awards and one with his '57 awards. Although there's no U-Boat with diamonds in the offered grouping of wartime awards, it's interesting see that there is a silver '57 form U-Boat with diamonds in his '57 grouping. I wonder what happened to the wartime version.

Gysae was a Rear Admiral in the Bundesmarine before his retirement in 1970.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

Gysae's '57 with diamonds. It looks like an accurate silver casting of an S&L '57 U-Boat with 1960's hardware.

[Sepp45]

Now when you look at the so-called "Prien" award, it's a bit different again. It's most like the "late"version but the swastika is mounted a tiny bit lower down. So the question becomes when was Günther Prien's badge officially awarded? To be the larger version, if the timing theory of the two types is correct, it would have to have been awarded two years after his death.

Norm, here's a good zoom on the diamond badge. Maybe it can be of use for further analysis

The pictures comes from the "Regimentals Catalogue Nº 43", when the attributed grouping of Prien was sold.

[Norm F]

Hi Sepp,

The photo is still too limited to be positive, but I still think it looks more like a variant of the repro from the Russian article (discussed in post #88) than like an original Type 2. The main features to note are the grid-like brilliant-cut diamonds and the main pin which is shorter and pointier than on originals.

And as mentioned before two other strikes against it are:
1) Prien should have been bestowed a Type 1 (early) badge with the small swastika, not a Type 2.
2) The other U-Boat badge in that grouping with the horizontal pin setup was a fake.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Sepp45]

Fregattenkapitan Erich topp wearing his diamond badge

[Norm F]

Fregattenkapitan Erich topp wearing his diamond badge

Hi Sepp,

Hard to say for sure but it's certainly possible. (I put the Merten badge there for comparison). Do you have any other information about the occasion of the photo?

In its favour, Topp received his Diamonds badge on April 11, 1942, and that photo was definitely take later than that since he can be seen to be wearing his Oakleaves with swords which he didn't receive until August 17, 1942.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Sepp45]

Diamond badges from Heinrich Liebe and Rolf Mützelburg, donated by the familes to the Marineschule Mürwik and now stored in the museum archives.

(These rare photos were taken by Paul-Patrick Schröder and sent to me; picture credits to him)

[Norm F]

Diamond badges from Heinrich Liebe and Rolf Mützelburg, donated by the familes to the Marineschule Mürwik and now stored in the museum archives.

(These rare photos were taken by Paul-Patrick Schröder and sent to me; picture credits to him)

Thanks Sepp (and Paul-Patrick). The Liebe badge is very interesting since it's obviously from the same production run as the Schultze diamonds badge which has that same Schwerin mark on the pin (seen back in post #61). Consistent with this, Liebe and Schultze were right next to each other in the time of award of their Oakleaves -- Liebe on June 10, 1941 and Schultze on June 12, 1941. They're also the earliest awards we've seen posted so far.

That Mützelburg badge is more problematic since it's not the usual silver U-Boat with Diamonds, but rather a normal Tombak Schwerin U-Boat badge with a diamonds swastika applied. Also, the stones in the usual diamonds badges are rough cut whereas the stones in the Mützelburg badge appear to be brilliant cut (although admittedly the photo is a bit blurry to tell). Furthermore, Adalbert Schnee received his Oakleaves on the same day as Mützelburg, July 14, 1942, so one might suspect they would receive the same type of diamonds badge, but the Schnee badge is the typical Type 1 with diamonds (reverse view shown in comparison).

Perhaps Mützelburg had a version made by a jeweller for wear? I wish we knew more about its background.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Sepp45]

That Mützelburg badge is more problematic since it's not the usual silver U-Boat with Diamonds, but rather a normal Tombak Schwerin U-Boat badge with a diamonds swastika applied. Also, the stones in the usual diamonds badges are rough cut whereas the stones in the Mützelburg badge appear to be brilliant cut (although admittedly the photo is a bit blurry to tell). Furthermore, Adalbert Schnee received his Oakleaves on the same day as Mützelburg, July 14, 1942, so one might suspect they would receive the same type of diamonds badge, but the Schnee badge is the typical Type 1 with diamonds (reverse view shown in comparison)

Norm, here's a photo of the Mützelburg badge taken in 1980. It was posted by a WAF member a few years ago.

[Norm F]

Norm, here's a photo of the Mützelburg badge taken in 1980. It was posted by a WAF member a few years ago.

Yes, Markus (CSForrester) posted a version of his 1980 photo back in post #120 of this thread. At the time we didn't have enough detail to draw any conclusions.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Norm F]

In fact, I'm not entirely convinced that badge is the same as in the Mützelburg display photo? Either it's a different badge or, as conjectured earlier, perhaps Mützelburg had a jeweller-made extra. We would need more details regarding the provenance to know.

Best regards,
---Norm