How scarce is a signature by RK-Winner Oberst Petershagen?

[torstenbel]

I ask the question because Petershagen became a communist living and working in East Germany until his death in 1969. He would have not promoted the fact that he had the Knights Cross in East Germany and that would not really have provided him with any prestige, etc in East Germany and he would not have given autographs as such because of this reason. He was the commander of Panzergrenadier Regiment 92 and he handed over the City of Greifswald to the Red Army without fight. He also served in the 6th Army at Stalingrad, etc. I was just thinking that surely, signatures or RK Winners living in East Germany must be much scarcer than those from RK Winners that ended up living in West Germany...is there a distinction to be made between the two in terms of scarcity? Cheers, Torsten.

PS: Below is the signature and dedication that I have got by him...

[torstenbel]

close up of his signature...

[torstenbel]

the dedication and signature are in his East German published autobiography (end of the war until his return to East Germany).

[byterock]

Well it turns this .75 cent paperback into a 10$~30$ paperback anyway.

[torstenbel]

Well it turns this .75 cent paperback into a 10$~30$ paperback anyway.

thank you for your reply....whatever it is worth in monetary terms will be determined by the market and that is not what I am interested in...I was genuinely just interested to know how unusual it is to find a KC holder signature from someone who went on to live in East Germany rather than in West Germany...for the reasons I mentioned earlier on I would think that East German KC Holder signatures must be quite scarce....has anyone got any thoughts on that?? Cheers, Torsten.

[Hank C.]

...edit...
for the reasons I mentioned earlier on I would think that East German KC Holder signatures must be quite scarce....has anyone got any thoughts on that?? Cheers, Torsten.

Just my thoughts - I don't think KC holders would have worried about it. Other people divided Germany, not them. They probably felt like Germans, and had done their duty.

best,
Hank

[Bullwyf]

Oh you are totally wrong Hankmeister.
KC holders in east germany had big problems if it was known that they are KC holders.
They were treated as warcriminals and called fachists.
They had big problems to find a good job and had mostly only the opportunity to work in simple jobs.
They gave no autographs and got no letter from the west.
If so, they would cause in bigger problems than you can think.
They kept the fact being a KC holder for them selve and hoped that it was not getting public.
Anyway the government of east germany surley knows them.
After the fall of the wall I met some of the eastern KC holders and it was the first time they spoke about their wartime.

[VtwinVince]

I have to agree with Bull, as my uncle stayed in Cottbus after the war, and the only way he became a top civil servant in the DDR was by becoming an ardent communist. This caused considerable tension in the family, as those living in the west were still very patriotic, in spite of being refugees.

[byterock]

Was the book actually published in the DDR or was it published after he left the DDR?

The others are right signitures of DDR RK holders are rarer but I assumed this book was signed and published in the west.

[torstenbel]

Was the book actually published in the DDR or was it published after he left the DDR?

The others are right signitures of DDR RK holders are rarer but I assumed this book was signed and published in the west.

as per my first message in this thread...he never left the DDR. The book was published in the DDR in 1962 and he died in the DDR in 1969. RK Winners had a very difficult life in the DDR, unless they completely converted to socialism and openly stated that what they did in the war was completely wrong and that they served evil basically, which is what Petershagen did and this is how he got to publish his book. Hence, to come back to my original question...how scarce is it to get a East German RK winner's signature as supposed to a West German RK winner's signature. I do know that these are scarce...but how scarce? For example is anyone aware of another signature by this very man being held in any collection? Cheers, Torsten.