Small Luftwaffe Grouping

[Tom Yanacek]

Hello to all,

I just got this small Luftwaffe grouping today. Although it is nothing out of the ordinary, I really like these groupings that have stayed together for all these years. The grouping came from the guys family in Würzburg.

Best regards,
Tom

[Tom Yanacek]

Here is the guy's Czech Annexation Medal document. I don't know exactly what the 'Gfm.' abbreviation is before his name, but I'm sure it doesn't mean Generalfeldmarschall. I thought perhaps a typo for Gefreiter, but that doesn't jive with his 1944-issued Soldbuch which shows his rank to be Flieger. I think it is actually an abbreviation for a civilian occupation.

The document is signed by the Fliegerhorstkommandant of Würzburg.

[Tom Yanacek]

Here is his 1941-issued document for the 1939 War Merit Cross Second Class. At this time the guy was assigned to the Kommando Flughafenbereich Orléans in France, as a Technische Angestellten.

The document is signed by Generalleutnant Dr. Eugen Weissmann, as the Commanding General and Commander in Luftgau Western France.

[Tom Yanacek]

Here are the medals that came with the grouping:

The 1939 KVK2X is a bit of a mystery as the document appears to be for the 1939 KVK w/o swords, yet the medal itself has the swords.

[Tom Yanacek]

Here is the outside cover of the guys Soldbuch as well as the inside of the front cover and page #1:

The Soldbuch lists his decorations on page #22 as the Sudeten Annexation Medal and the 1939 KVK w/o swords, so once again I am wondering why the medal that came with the grouping has the swords.

[Mike TM]

Nice group congrats!!

Mike

[Tom Yanacek]

Here are two photos that came with the grouping:

The first image shows the Musikkorps of the Kommando Flughafenbereich Orléans and it is dated Mai/Juni 1941.

The second image shows the Officers of the Kommando Flughafenbereich Orléans. Although it is not dated, I assume it was taken around the same time as the other image. Michael Stang can be seen in this photo: He is the guy torwards the back, wearing glasses and a civilian suit.

[Tom Yanacek]

This shows his unit assignments from the middle of 1944 and through March of 1945.
Perhaps he received the 1939 KVK2 w/o swords as a civilian in the service of the Luftwaffe. Then, when things turned to crap, he found himself as a Flieger in the Luftwaffe and was awarded the 1939 KVK2X in 1944 or 45.

[Tom Yanacek]

The Soldbuch entries for his earlier decorations:

[Tom Yanacek]

Nice group congrats!!

Mike

Thank you, Mike.

Best regards,
Tom

[peterm]

I like it too, Tom !

Kind regards, Peter

[Sevrin]

Group

That's a nice little group. Medals in great shape. I'm also curious what the Gfm designation is.

[Simon O.]

Nice little group. I don't think he got a KVK m/S later on, either it was added at some point after the war, or it could well be that they sent the wrong class of medal home to him. When a soldier was either posted away or was otherwise not with his unit for a longer period of time, it was normal practice to forward decorations awarded in his absence to his home address. A KVK2 o/S is in fact pretty unusual and those processing the awards would be far more used to sending the swords version, an easy mistake to make and after all, the ribbon was the same.

Finding a KVK2 o/S to a civillian working for the armed forces in the occupied countries is pretty hard. Whilst i have dozens of documents for the swords in my collection, i only have one without.

Here's an example of the same doc style for the swords version.

[JeremyJ]

..

Nice group!

Jeremy

[Tom Yanacek]

Thanks to all for the comments.

Simon,

That is a nice KVK2X document. Thanks for posting it.

Thank you also for your comments and insight.

The simple mistake scenario seems to make the most sense. That was actually my first thought when I noticed the discrepancy. But it is sometimes easy to ignore the simple and go looking for a complicated explanation.

Do you have any idea what the abbreviation 'Gfm.' on the Czech Annexation document is?

Thanks again,
Tom