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These seem fine to me!Cheers, Steve
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"Next to a battle lost, the saddest thing is a battle won." Arthur Wellesley — Duke of Wellington -
Hi John,
Based on the scans, I would also say that the documents are good. Of interest is the fact that the East Medal document lacks an eagle ink stamp. It is not troubling to me, though, because it did happen from time to time. I also noticed that the guy received the East Medal on 1 September 1942 as an Unteroffizier but then on 20 April 1943 (over seven months later) he gets the KVK2X as a Gefreiter. Either a clerical error of his rank or the guy did something to get busted down?
Best regards,
TomMihi libertas necessest!Comment
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A good looking group... his Ostmedaille is almost definitely backdated for when his unit was approved for the award.Comment
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Brian is right. The date you see in the center of ostmedaille docs is when the unit granted the award to all its elligible members, not when they eventually got the award which could be well into 1944 in some cases. Some examples also include the actual award date at the bottom by the singature.Collecting German award documents, other paperwork and photos relating to Norway and Finland.Comment
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Here's one with two dates...Comment
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Good example Brian, it illustrates perfectly what we're explaining.Collecting German award documents, other paperwork and photos relating to Norway and Finland.Comment
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Unfortunately, not everyone seems to accept (or even remotely grasp) the concept of document "Backdating", but here (as Simon has stated) is a fine example.
"Hundestaffel"Comment
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The interesting thing is that backdating seems to be relatively uncommon for most awards but very common for the Ostmedaille. As a side note, I always get a kick out of the fact that these awards were still being given out (or, finally processed) as late as 1944.Originally posted by Hundestaffel View PostComment
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"Backdating" is indeed a subject that some people just cannot get their head around, no matter what kind of "facts" are presented that clearly dispel their beliefs or (mis)understandings.
Thankx for posting Brian....
"Hundestaffel"Comment
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Thanks to all the contributers!Comment
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Well this isn't backdating as such, the date in the center correctly refers to the actual date the award was granted in unit orders from the mans unit at the time. That's why some of these include the extra date denoting when the award document was issued.
So they're not backdating an award that had already been granted back in '42, it's just paperwork catching up. But i get the point of having to be careful when matching dates seen on documents with stamps and signatures, but it certainly doesn't apply to everything. The Germans are nothing if not correct as we Brits love to point out to them
Promotions however are a good example of backdating, where an officer could be promoted on a particular day, but have the promotion backdated months in order to give him a higher seniority. This is something often seen on documents signed by an officer on a date close to a promotion of his.
Here's another variant, where no date is given at all and the soldiers current (1944) unit is given. Perhaps in this case they knew the soldier was entitled to the award but didn't have the correct date so didn't bother with it at all.Last edited by Simon O.; 01-31-2010, 05:45 PM.Collecting German award documents, other paperwork and photos relating to Norway and Finland.Comment
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Originally posted by Brian R View Post
It's the same for most awards to a greater or lesser degree it's just that most others don't include the granting date like this.
Another example where you can see it is in woundbadge awards were the wound dates are included along with the award issue date. I have an example of a WB being awarded over 2 years after the guy was wounded.Collecting German award documents, other paperwork and photos relating to Norway and Finland.Comment
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