How many formal knight cross documents are presented?

[Meck]

I was wondering if it is known how many of the formal (frieda thiersch) folders are presented to the award winners?
I know it started in 1940 and ended somewhere half 1943 (if I am correct).

[chen]

Martin,
1940: app 400 awards
1941: app 786 awards
1942: app 952 awards
Total: 2138 awards( Maerz once said 2205)
App. 800 binders made, but app. 500 executed.

[Meck]

Thanks Chen! So roughly 500 "Frieda Thiersch" award documents where handed over to RKT recipients or their next to skin, in case it was postuminous,
It would be interesting to know with what reason one was also given the formal document? Their must have been some policy for it?

[chen]

Martin,
I have no idea.
But I guess it depends on the following:
1. When that person gets it? They they wait in line to get the document.
2. Whether Hitler wants to present it so he will ask that particular document to be speed up in making.
( The KC document,especially signed one, are rarer than the KC medal itself)

[markus]

From my latest findings looking into the matter, I saw that foreigners e.g. enjoyed priorities and Hitler definitely tried his best to personally hand sign all KC docs. According to the ongoing investigations of a friend of mine and myself, most formal KC documents bear AH's own signature.

Personally I find it absolutely amazing that formal KC documents like the one to Hauptmann Rolf Pingel (KC on Sept. 14, 1940!) and many others, were still sent to the awardees or their families in April 1945 !!!

Gerdy Troost and her team of artists just did not have sufficient capacity to produce all documents during the war. It's an amazing and very long story.

Thankfully it was never accepted to lower the standard, the quality of all documents incl. the "normal" Knight Cross documents.

Any evening filling discussion...

Cheers,
Markus

[Meck]

Thanks for the replies! Just feels strange.
like they where choosen random? and someone decided to present a formal document to a winner and to the other they didn't. Now these days I do not think you can get away with that..
But nice item to get some clearness.

[markus]

Thanks for the replies! Just feels strange.
like they where choosen random? and someone decided to present a formal document to a winner and to the other they didn't. Now these days I do not think you can get away with that..
But nice item to get some clearness.

Martin,

I believe that these were produced first in - first out, as a general rule. It took a "normal" formal KC document between 1-3 years to be produced, acc. to some of my findings. Many were stored for years before being sent out (see that Rolf Pingel example) I mentioned above. Most never made it to production due to limit production capacities.

I'm not aware btw, that any formal KC document was handed over personally by Hitler, neither any OL document. Swords and Diamond cassettes were a different story.

I could imagine that as a soldier rose from KC to OL or even Swords in a relatively short time (pilots, U-Boot aces), it was seen after that all documents were produced for said individual. But that I cannot prove.

You will see that this issue of formal award documents still bears a lot of vague information and is simply unexplored territory. Most dealers, historians, advance collectors do not know or are unsure about the documents' A.H. signtures even. You would be surprised!

[Meck]

Thanks Markus,
maybe time for a deep research into this matter