Need LAH Werner Kindler info

[Bob.U.hundrac]

I used the computer to translate Kindlers book discription.
It says he had an outstanding 84 close combat days putting him 2nd behind Maringgele. Is this number confirmed? or possable stretching the truth?
Is he still alive?
Can anyone pass onto me any other none KC holders that have over 70 days of close combat?
It is these gentlemen who's autographs I collect.
Thankyou

[MarcRikmenspoel]

Thomas Fischer is the leading modern-day author on the Leibstandarte. He knows a lot of the veterans because his grandfather was a senior NCO in the LAH. Fischer has collected the accounts of veterans into his books, and in his Soldiers of the Leibstandarte, he makes the point several times that awards in the LAH were often slow to be given, and didn't reflect the full service of an individual.

So, someone with many close combat days would finally get the Silver NKS, long after they had qualified for it, for example.

Werner Kindler came to the attention of people who study awards when Patrick Agte wrote about him for his Jochen Peiper biography. Agte credits Kindler with 56 days of close combat. He says that four of Kindler's comrades had over 45 days, and just missed qualifying. Kindler's NKSiG was dated April 1, 1945, and his German Cross in Gold was dated April 20 (which may be too late to be official). It was the intended practice, per Hitler's instructions, that anyone who qualified for the NKSiG should also receive the DKiG, but it didn't always work out.

[Bob.U.hundrac]

Need LAH Werner Kindler info

Thank you Mark
56 days of close combat sounds resonable.
I try and research all the hight number CCC in Gold holders and I figured I would have come across Kindler by now if he had 84 days. Dont know why he would put that number in his book description though.
It is very difficult to find the number of close combat days for these men who didnt win the KC.
I have never been able to find a thread on that topic in any forums.

[Bob.U.hundrac]

Thank you Mark
56 days of close combat sounds resonable.
I try and research all the hight number CCC in Gold holders and I figured I would have come across Kindler by now if he had 84 days. Dont know why he would put that number in his book description though.
It is very difficult to find the number of close combat days for these men who didnt win the KC.
I have never been able to find a thread on that topic in any forums.

Sorry I meant to write Marc.

[MarcRikmenspoel]

Looking back, I didn't make my point very well, below. What I meant to indicate is that achievements tended to go under-reported in the LAH. Kindler might well have had 80+ days of close combat, with only 56 officially recognized. And what is a "day" of close combat? "Days" could be accumulated simply by being a frontline soldier long enough, besides actual combat days. That complicates the number.

Sepp Lainer and Hermann Buchner were two of the first winners of the NKSiG. They both received it in the autumn of 1943. I imagine both had plenty more days, before Lainer was captured in Normandy, and Buchner was mortally wounded in November 1944.

[markus]

Karl Menne of the SS-Pz. Gren. Rgt 2 "LSSAH" later SS-Pz. Gren. Rgt. 24 "Danmark" is also an interesting case. An undocumented recipient of the CCC in Gold. (see "Peiper" and "Kindler" by Patrick Agte.)

After more than 40 confirmed (I had heard 48 days once) close combat days before the invasion, Karl Menne was awarded the CCC in Silver. This was still during his time with the Leibstandarte.

He had also received the EK1 with the LSSAH and once more (sic!) with "Danmark". So he was awarded the EK1 two times, (strange things happen....)

With "Danmark" he led the Recon Platoon and was frequently out in the boonies 1944/45, so it is very well possible he did in fact get the CCC in Gold.

Karl Menne always said he had been awarded the CCC in Gold during Btl. reunions after the war.
He was said to have been a very modest person and no "talker" claiming to have awards he never got.

We shall never really know for sure I guess.

Below pls find his Soldbuch photo wearing the CCC in Silver.

Markus