Kraftfahrbewaehrungsabzeichen Urkunden

[Hank C.]

Just for the heck of it, thought I'd post this doc I just sold on e-stand and see if anybody else would like to post theirs. I know there's a lot of diffferent styles out there, so feel free to post if you have one!

best
hank

[Simon O.]

Here you go, i've several bronze but the silver and gold grades are really pretty scarce

[Ian Jewison]

Here's a variant in landscape rather than portrait to a member of Nachrichten Abteilung 110, 110 Inf.Div.

This is part of a larger group and I like it for many reasons, however one is for the list that came with it counting for the days for the drivers badge! As you can see this was closed 23.10.1943 as he was used as a Funker/Gewehr Schützen from then on.

Also you can see that as a motorcyclist you required 90 combat days, 120 as a combat driver and 150 days for the gold chord for the Bronze and Silver grades? Didn't realise you could get gold chord for the Army drivers badge!?!?!?

In total he had 145 days......

/Ian

[hucks216]

Here are the ones in my collection: some Bronze, some Silver and one Gold variant.



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[hucks216]

Final Ones...



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[JeremyJ]

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A few that I have...

[JeremyJ]

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[Diaspora]

Nice documents!

Unforgenantly, I don't have the document. But I have the gold entered into one of my Wehrpass/Soldbuch-groups.

How common would the gold-grade of this award be?

[Nordi]

two of mine, both from the same man

[Hank C.]

Great response here! Thought it would be interesting, as these aren't normally much sought after.

Hucks, I see your gold grade was awarded late '43. If your guy survived the war and kept driving, he could have probably achieved oakleaf and swords, if they'd been available!

best
Hank

[Simon O.]

Just arrived today

Festung Btl.664 was part of the 210 In.Div. a coastal defence division of around 6000 men. It was part of the XIX Gebirgs Korps of the 20 Gebirgs Armee defending the 'backdoor' of the korps up on the Murmansk front just inside the Norwegian border.

the btl. OOB is from sept.44

[Simon O.]

You might wonder how a static unit like this could have men qualifying for the kraftfahr badge at all, let alone the silver, however when you look at where they were deployed you can see why.

the battalion was spread over a large area, within what you can see on the map as 'festung Kirkenes' the black circles indicate areas within which various elements of the btl. were deployed. To give you an idea, the btl. HQ was in Kirkenes, one of the zugs from the 3 Kp. was deployed up on the coast at a place called Grense Jakobselv, today right on the border with Russia, that's a distance of 57 Km today. You can see then, keeping these widely spread elements supplied would have involved a lot of driving over time and remember that back then the roads up there were nothing more than dirt tracks.

A static division of 6000 men didn't have a lot of motor vehicles either, from the monthly report for oct.44 we can see that the division had 64 motorcycles, 54 Pkw (cars) and 78 Lkw (trucks). compared with 466 horses.

You can also see that the division wasn't just sitting on it's backside either. Oct.44 saw the Soviet offensive against the XIX Geb.Korps which pushed them out of Russia, Finland and this far NE corner of Norway. elements of the division saw ground combat, were under air attack and in some cases had to deal with small amphibious assaults made by the Russians. The division suffering 25 KIA, 65 WIA and 80 MIA within that month.

After pulling out of the area, the division was broken up, with the bulk of it being sent to the area of the Lofoten islands west of Narvik and becoming Festungs Brigade Lofoten