Preliminary Document for the NARVIKSCHILD / opinions please

[Eric Queen]

A fellow forum member has asked me to post this image and ask the membership to comment.



I thought I would post my "schild facsimile" version of the formal document signed by DEITL.



Thanks,

EQ

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[Chris Boonzaier]

I must be honest, I have never seen one like it, I would suppose there was a backlog for the official ones and the unit issued the preliminary award documents, (whichis really the purpose of prelim docs anyway I guess).
Somehow the wording makes me give it a thumbs up, almost as if it were dione so early that they had no official doc to copy (as yet).

[reichpapers]

Preliminary docs are the easiest to fake. Not saying this one is. Don't hold much trust for the typed versions.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Easy to fake, that they are, but I have had a lot of original field ´made ones and would never reject one on the simple "easy to fake"
argument.
Here are some more Narvik field made docs.
the botton one is of course a regular KM doctors ausweis, the top one is a field made one from Dietls Gebirgsjaeger HQ for a navy doctor serving with the Gebirgs army once his ship had been sunk.


[ 01 June 2001: Message edited by: Chris Boonzaier ]

[Chris Boonzaier]

A wound badge to a destroyer man, what I believe to be the only one awarded to a man for a wound recieved on the trip to Narvik, as opposed to at Narvik itself.

[Eric Queen]

Unfortunately, my opinion is a bit less optimistic. Here are a couple of observations.

1. The first Narvikschild ( prelim or otherwise ) was awarded to Edward Dietl by Hitler on March 21, 1941.

2. This is not Maj. Erich Walthers signature ( the commander of I./FJR1 at that time )

3. A battalion commander did not have the authority to award a campaign schild. If he did he would sign it at Batl.HQ not Regt.HQ.

4. This feldpost number is for a supply truck colomn of Inf. Rgt. 428

In my opinion this one ( the top one ) is a big thumbs down.

EQ

[Gary T]

Eric,

I have a wehrpass to a FJ whose award date for the Narvikshield in his wehrpass is given as 1st March 1941. This might make me suspicious but it is recored on his official death card whcih is till in its envelope having been posted from Stendal. What do you think - an admin error? (it is entered after the award of the EK2 on 29th June 1941).

Cheers,
Gary.

[Eric Queen]

Gary,

In the case of your Wehrpass, I would tend to think it more than likely is an admin error. We all know this happened a lot. I have a book from a guy who was awarded the army jump badge on 1.9.37 but it is entered as 15.6.37. March 01, 1941 and March 21, 1941 are still realatively close, September 25, 1940 and March 21, 1941 are not.

By the way, a paratrooper werhrpass with a Narvikschild entry is a fantastic, rare piece. Is there any way you can post an image of it?

Thanks,

Eric

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi eric,
I cede the point...
I had not looked in detail at stamps and signatures or any of the concrete proofs :-(

I was looking more in the line of the wording for a Prelim award doc.

Your points are very valid, it has every technical fault a field made doc can have.

[Gary T]

Hi Eric,

Here is the scan of the awards from this particular wehrpass. I've also scanned a couple of othr pages and his rememberance card. I also have the award doc for the Para Badge. Interestingly his unit pages doesn't show his unit from January 1940 until the end of July. However, as you can see his jump training is recorded from February to March 1940 - which unit would this have been with?
How long would it have been from him finishing his jump training to joining his unit? I'm wondering if he also jumped in Holland on May 10th - I would gather that his unit should have been I./FJR 1 as I believe this is what jumped at Narvik. But were there any of the regimental companies (13./ & 14./) present in the Narvik operation, as this would correlate with his subsequent unit? A final observation - the Narvik op is not recorded on the campaign pages (although service in Poland with Bau-Btl. 17 is!).

[Eric Queen]

Gary,

Thanks for posting the images.Its an interesting book but somewhat difficult to decipher. If I am reading it correctly, it says that from 18.11.39 to 7.7.40 he was with Flieger Ausbildung Regt.71, then from 30.7.40 he was with 13./FJR 1. He would have had to have been part of I./FJR 1 under Maj.Erich Walther from at least May 1940 to have participated in the Narvik operation.
13./FJR1 was of course part of III./FJR1 under Karl-Lother Schulz which did not participate in Narvik but did jump as a batallion on May 10, 1940 at the Waalhaven airfield ( Holland ). Its unusual also that there is no mention of the Narvik operation on the battle page. From what I can see, I can only think of two possibilities. 1)During the period the book lists him as being in Flg.Aus.Rgt.71 ( up until 7.7.40 )he was put into a company from I./FJR 1, perhaps a non permanent assignment / temporary replacement, and participated in the operation with the Batallion, but for some reason niether the unit or the operation are listed in the book. 2) through an clerical glitch he was given the award by mistake. I am not saying this is the case, but I have seen evidence of this before. You say you have his Verleihungsurkunde for the Fallschirmschuetzenabzeichen. Does it match the award date in the book of October 04, 1940? Its interesting that at this early date, it took him 6 months to get the jump badge after completing jump training.
Gary, would it be possible to post one more image of the battle page?

Thanks again for sharing it.

Eric

[Gary T]

Hi Eric,

Here's the scan of the battle pages. I don't find there being no mention of the Narvik op that unusual - the official battle entries are usually based at divisional level and its not unusual for them to be added at a much later date. Of course if he was transferred shortly afterwards to 13./FJR1 his wehrpass would then pass into that company's admin system (whose men of course did not jump at Narvik). By the time the company clerks for I./ got round to updating their wehrpasses Herr Brauer was no longer with them. Perahps this could also explain the error in the Narvikshield entry - perhaps it was added after he returned to I./ in July 1942 (it certainly was added after the EK2 entry).
The 13./ and 14./ companies were not part of III./FJR 1 (whose companies were 9 - 12) but were under regimental command (the 13./ being the infantry gun and 14./ being the anti-tank company). However I did a bit of reading and the common consensus seems to be that these companies were added in the 'summer of 1940'. What I think may have happned is that he was a member of 4./FJR1 (the heavy weapons company) and when 13./FJR1 was formed they took men from the heavy companies to form it.
The dates when he was with FAR 71 read 18.11.39 - 7.1.40 (not 7). If you look closely the 1 in '71' is the same. So we do not know his eact unit from 7.1.40 - 30.7.40 (but know he did his jump training during this period). Oh, yes his jump doc does say 4th October. (My other FJ wehrpass does not have a jump badge entered although he did his training and was killed in Crete - 15./ Sturm Regt - I believe they parachuted in?).
It's not that unusual for wehrpasses to have gaps in the unit history (although I only have two FJ wehrpasses I do have a lot of Heer ones). It seems that alot of the time the wehrpasses were only updated when the man was transferred for whatever reason. It appears in this case that the company clerk was a bit sloppy! In any case they didn't bother to enter any weapons training either - only the seconfd wehrpass I've seen without even a K or G98 entry.
T
hanks for your help, Eric (and have a look at my site if you have time, and tell me what you think),

Cheers,

Gary.

[Eric Queen]

Gary,

Sorry for the mis-read on the dates. On my screen the "1" looks like a deffinate "7".
Regardless, I agree with you 100% that wehrpasses often have historical gaps, not only when comes to unit history. This wehrpass from Gottlieb Moeck is a similar case. Notice page 12, the unit page. It indicates that Moeck was with 8./FJR 1 from
1.8.38 to 17.7.40. In reality, Moeck was with 4./Fallschirm Infanterie Batl. from 1.8.38 until 31.12.38 and 8./FJR 1 from 1.1.39. 8./FJR 1 didn't even exist before 1.1.39. So here is a case where a man was with 4./FIB for 5 months but there is no mention of it at all. Also, Moeck received both the EKI and EKII, as well as the Erdkampfabzeichen but there is no mention of it in the book at all. There is little doubt that the clerks at the time took a lot of liberties when it came to when, how and if information would be entered.

[Peter v L]

I think there may be some confusion here......

The first shield was awarded to Dietl 21 of March 1941, but I belive that to be the acctual shield, not the award document. I have a award document to a Heeresbergfuhrer
signed the 10 November 1941. Also according to Klietman, there was 10.000 Narvikshields
ordered by the Generalkommando Gebirgskorps Norwegen on the 21 of November 1940, but the delivery was delayed, and they had not arrived before the award off Dietl. If the would have arrived in stipulated time, one has to assume, lot´s off soldiers would have recived their shields before Dietl.

Peter v L

[Eric Queen]

Peter,

Thanks for posting the document. If this piece is original ( and in certainly looks it to me ) then this is yet another example of how the information in many reference materials in incomplete at best and out right wrong at worst. I had always read that the first Narvikschild was given to Dietl on 21.3.41 but your document proves that the award was at least given "on paper" long before that. OK that is settled. My opinion of the document in question however remains the same. Even if we could overlook the
"technical" fact that Batl.commanders were not authorized to award campaign schilds, I cannot overlook the fact that this is not Walthers signature and the stamp is from a completely non related unit. Thanks for posting the image. We all learned something.

EQ