Here's an interesting small group i recently picked up. Interesting for a number of reasons.
The guy in question joined the LW as a vehicle mechanic in 1935, early in his career he served with the Legion Condor in Spain, 4./ Luftnachrichten Abteilung 88 was his unit then which i believe was the fliegerhorsts kompanie. for his service he received the Spanish Cross in Silver, although it doesn't specifically state it i assume this is with Swords rather than the super rare without Swords?
during the war he was sent to North Norway and Northern Finland where he carried on serving in his trade on one or more of the airfields up there around Kirkenes.
Of course having served up there and still being in Norway at the war's end he thus qualified for the Lappland shield. By now an Oberfeldwebel (his papers state he was also hauptfeldwebel) he ended up at the major airfield of Bardufoss. So began a new chapter in his travels, as vehicle mechanic there was still work for him to do even though the war was over. He moved through several 'reservations' as a POW before ending up in the Trondheim region, Stören being a place South of that city. Along with these 3 docs came several papers relating to his time as a POW and they reveal that he remained in Norway until the end of July 1946 still working as a mechanic, that is quite unusual and it makes him amongst the very last POWs (with the exception of those convicted of war crimes) to remain in the country. What's also interesting is that this Lappland doc is, thus far, the latest i have yet seen for this award. Previously, the latest i had seen are dated Sept. '45.
So we have a guy awarded the first of the Wehrmacht's campaign awards and the very last of the last of it's campaign shields.
The guy in question joined the LW as a vehicle mechanic in 1935, early in his career he served with the Legion Condor in Spain, 4./ Luftnachrichten Abteilung 88 was his unit then which i believe was the fliegerhorsts kompanie. for his service he received the Spanish Cross in Silver, although it doesn't specifically state it i assume this is with Swords rather than the super rare without Swords?
during the war he was sent to North Norway and Northern Finland where he carried on serving in his trade on one or more of the airfields up there around Kirkenes.
Of course having served up there and still being in Norway at the war's end he thus qualified for the Lappland shield. By now an Oberfeldwebel (his papers state he was also hauptfeldwebel) he ended up at the major airfield of Bardufoss. So began a new chapter in his travels, as vehicle mechanic there was still work for him to do even though the war was over. He moved through several 'reservations' as a POW before ending up in the Trondheim region, Stören being a place South of that city. Along with these 3 docs came several papers relating to his time as a POW and they reveal that he remained in Norway until the end of July 1946 still working as a mechanic, that is quite unusual and it makes him amongst the very last POWs (with the exception of those convicted of war crimes) to remain in the country. What's also interesting is that this Lappland doc is, thus far, the latest i have yet seen for this award. Previously, the latest i had seen are dated Sept. '45.
So we have a guy awarded the first of the Wehrmacht's campaign awards and the very last of the last of it's campaign shields.