The Coburg Badge

[Br. James]

I agree, Joe: the List of Conferred Awards must have been released following the 1932 award event...though not far removed enough to include the fourteen additional names, including Schwede-Coburg, that Robin Lumsden's list mentions.

And thanks for providing the copy of the letter from the Brown House dated October 1933 -- a very nice piece! Though I can't make out what the letter says, I see that it was signed by Albert Bormann; that piece would make an excellent addition to any political collection! While Bormann didn't use a title line for that letter, I assume he was writing as Hitler's adjutant in the Führer's Private Office (Kanzlei). I have a letter of his on what appears to be the same letterhead at the Brown House, though dated in February of 1933.

Br. James

[JoeW]

..................
And thanks for providing the copy of the letter from the Brown House dated October 1933 -- a very nice piece! Though I can't make out what the letter says, I see that it was signed by Albert Bormann; that piece would make an excellent addition to any political collection! While Bormann didn't use a title line for that letter, I assume he was writing as Hitler's adjutant in the Führer's Private Office (Kanzlei). I have a letter of his on what appears to be the same letterhead at the Brown House, though dated in February of 1933.
Br. James

Sorry for the small image. I was trying to keep it within the screen parameters as the initial image was guite large. How is this one? It is an archival copy from microfilm.

[Br. James]

Thanks very much, Joe -- very legible now! And I really wasn't pushing for another copy!

Br. James

[ErichS]

Thanks Joe for posting that most interesting letter.

According to Ludecke, people were coming out of the woodwork wanting to wear the badge after the 1st awarding in 1932. It also seems that those in the initial awarding of the Coburg Ehrenzeichen also had to be re-vetted. The vetting of the Blood Order ran through 1942 for example.

Good stuff being posted here!

[Mijke]

I wasn't at Coburg, but I have really appreciated and enjoyed the discussions from you three. Thank you. Mike

[Br. James]

Hold on a minute, Mike -- the Battle of Coburg took place almost 90 years ago and that would have to make any living veteran at least 110 years old today! I can't speak for Erich or Joe, and sometimes I feel like I'm about that old...but I really ain't!! Really!!

But seriously, thanks for your comment and support! These sorts of conversations are food for thought and research, and I'm sure I can speak for Erich and Joe when I tell you that we all love to dig into such events!

Br. James

[ErichS]

I thought that I would re-post this. The source is unknown but it's interesting because it follows the versions of the event already posted and it also may be possibly another first hand account.

Mit Hitler in Coburg.

We were 700 men that left from Munich in an special party train. I was jobless and I did not have any money. But I scratched my own missery suffering a week of hunger and many other privations to pay for my ticket and be present, together with the rest of my Kameraden in the "German Day" that was going to be celebrated in Coburg on the 14th and 15th of October of 1922.

Our presence at the train platforms and stations was a surprise to the other passengers. The flag with the "Hakenkreuz" was, in those days, compleately unknown to the greater public.

Weparty men and the SA arrived to Coburg along with our own music band. The police spoke with the Fuhrer. The marxist and bolchevik trade unions want to prevent that we march in formation, with our flags deploy at the beat of our music band.

However the Fuhrer gives the order to the SA to deploy in parade formation and that our musical instruments start playing. Like that ,we passed through a mob of reds, speachless watching us march. Then they reacted, with insults and trheats.

The police redirect our group inside a house, but our Fuhrer gives the order to face the red mob. Only at the beat of the drum! And in this manner we left the Hofbrauhauskeller recieving a rain of rocks. Our only weapons were our fist and our valor, with them we cleared the streets of thousands of communists.

Later the Fuhrer spoke. Awakening the interest of all of us presents at the rally. The same way that he was in command at the fight outside the Hofbrauhauskeller, he also commanded all the night fighting against the red front. And like us he sleep on the hay when the fighting was over.

The next day Coburg is gleaming and its inhabitants , can after all this years feel free. "The reds had been wipe out by Hitler and his men!" "Finally we can live in peace with out their nasty attitude and tiranny!" Statements like these are being shouted by young and old, women, men, workers, merchants, and civil servants. All of then join us in our march with delirious enthusiasm. Imperial flags again are hanging on the windows and terraces . Germany awakes!

We arrived at the town square were the comune is trying to congregate 10,000 "proletarians", but they are less than 100 and they look afraid and broken.

In a pathetic attent , the marxist threaten the railroad workers so that our train will not be able to leave Coburg. The Fuhrer makes an announcement. If our train does not leave at the schedule hour, the SA will go and seek all the red leaders. In ten minutes our train was rolling.

We returned to Munich, full of bruises, sleepy and tired but victorious. With our lost voices we sang our songs with our hands on the shoulder of the Kamerad next to us and under the attenteyes of the fuhrer.

10 years later I was awarded. like the rest of ourKameraden present on that day, the Medal of Coburg. In peace and in war, over brown and feldgrau, proudly was displayed on my chest.

Today, May 1945, I am at a prisioner camp along with tens of thounsand of other Kameraden. Like many, I am suffering of dyssentery and we are crowded behind the barbed wire. We do not have any personnal space not even to go to the restroom.

This morning a Yank soldier, noticed my Medal of Coburg.The jailer iscurious about the rare medal. He has offer me a loaf of bread, a whole weeks ration, and a preferential space to use the letrines in exchange for my medal for his collection.

I have refuse.... I will die with my Medal of Coburg.

[Br. James]

Thank you very much, Erich, for this touching addition to this thread's accumulation of "Tales of the Battle of Coburg!" It's too bad that it is unsigned or attributed, but the author was clearly present for the whole time. One interesting note is that apparently all those who traveled on the special train that Hitler arranged for a round-trip to Coburg from Munich had to pay their own way! My assumption had been that "special train" meant that the NSDAP had both arranged and paid for it, so as to get as many Nazis to the scene and back home as possible. This description certainly clarifies that!

Many thanks again,

Br. James

[ErichS]

Thanks James,

I think that it also may be an actual account as well and it shows how special the CB was to this individual.

Ludecke had stated that in 1922 the party was broke so this account makes sense on this point as well.

[JoeW]

I don't know James and Erich. Although other authors such as Ailsby speak of each SA member buying his own ticket, the only period documentation indicates Hitler hired a special train for the round-trip. It would appear to me that any train company would ask for up front money in order to provide a locomotive and cars with crew and fuel for such a trip. We know the party was poor, but the plan was for them to get to Coburg for the confrontation. Eckart had friends with money. It seems that such an enormous logistical problem of moving 800 or so men 160 miles or so would not be left to chance that every man had the bucks to pay for their round-trip ticket.

[Jon Fish]

Perhaps simply Hitler and the party rented the train,probably needing to make a deposit in advance, and upon arrival each member of the party who went to Coburg chipped in and paid an amount each at the station. That would cover both accounts of events

[ErichS]

Good points Jon.

Either way, real or not, this account expresses the importance of both the battle and award to the Old Fighters and the young party.

[JoeW]

Yes it does, thank you Jon.

Hitler wrote that he had summoned additional units from other parts of Germany to take part in this important event. This is substantiated by Schwede-Coburg's account of the 10th Anniversary Award Ceremony where in indicated men from other parts of Germany had come for the celebration. In addition, Hitler accounted for additional men in his account that swelled the ranks of the Hundertschaften that had accompanied him on the train. One must conclude they arrived on their own. Included in the additional numbers would be those Coburgers who decided to join the movement or had been members waiting for the event. These 22 men are found in the list of the first 436 recipients. It was a well planned out strategic battle to expand the notoriety of Hitler's movement.

[Br. James]

Since there are so few memoirs or written remembrances from the participants in this watershed and pivotal event in the life of the NSDAP, perhaps we shall never have the level of detail as to how the special train was arranged and how each traveler from Munich paid for his round-trip passage...or to whom. Certainly Eckhart was a wealthy man and could have fronted the funds to secure the train arrangements, or he could have gotten some of his influential friends to lay out the cash up front. Prior to 1933, the Party existed in a constant state of near insolvency...or at least that is the story left to us by history...and yet Hitler could always find the funds to do what he wanted to do. We seldom hear of "missed opportunities" from him, and perhaps that is because he didn't want to leave a record that his plans were thwarted by financial circumstance...though he was never shy of 'crying poor' in public!

As we saw in Erich's recent post of the remembrance from the un-named PL who managed to scrape together the funds to purchase his ticket on the special train, even the poor and unemployed members could find the means to be there if they really wanted to. But I agree with Joe in that it would seem quite unlikely that Hitler could have secured a special train on just his name or "his good looks;" there must have been at least a deposit placed to secure this unique service. Perhaps, as Jon postulates, Hitler gave promisory notes to Eckhart and other financers that he would be responsible for securing the return of their investment? It still sounds so unlikely to me that Hitler -- knowing as he did that his membership base in the SA was made up of predominantly poor and unemployed men -- would have committed to bringing a large presence of Nazis to German Day in Coburg without at least some way of getting them there from Munich, which was still the largest membership population in Bavaria at that time. If he had either failed to show up at all or if he arrived with a hundred or fewer men behind him, that would have been a huge problem for the future of the Party. Perhaps each traveler was asked to either reimburse the cost of his round-trip ticket or to contribute as much toward it as he could?

Since we also know that the major altercations took place on the Saturday and overnight, Hitler certainly gained the great advantage of being able to present such a sizable force at the town square on the Sunday at noon because more than half of the Nazi participants on Sunday had gotten to Coburg either overnight or on Sunday morning, on their own. If Hitler's force had been left to march from the shooting gallery on Sunday morning with just the injured and bedraggled remnant of the contingent he brought with him from Munich, many of which had fought in the town streets throughout the night and probably looked pretty bloody, the Coburg Fortress gathering on Sunday could well have gone the other way.

Br. James

[der bingle]

Since there are so few memoirs or written remembrances from the participants in this watershed and pivotal event in the life of the NSDAP, perhaps we shall never have the level of detail as to how the special train was arranged and how each traveler from Munich paid for his round-trip passage...or to whom. Certainly Eckhart was a wealthy man and could have fronted the funds to secure the train arrangements, or he could have gotten some of his influential friends to lay out the cash up front. Prior to 1933, the Party existed in a constant state of near insolvency...or at least that is the story left to us by history...and yet Hitler could always find the funds to do what he wanted to do. We seldom hear of "missed opportunities" from him, and perhaps that is because he didn't want to leave a record that his plans were thwarted by financial circumstance...though he was never shy of 'crying poor' in public!

As we saw in Erich's recent post of the remembrance from the un-named PL who managed to scrape together the funds to purchase his ticket on the special train, even the poor and unemployed members could find the means to be there if they really wanted to. But I agree with Joe in that it would seem quite unlikely that Hitler could have secured a special train on just his name or "his good looks;" there must have been at least a deposit placed to secure this unique service. Perhaps, as Jon postulates, Hitler gave promisory notes to Eckhart and other financers that he would be responsible for securing the return of their investment? It still sounds so unlikely to me that Hitler -- knowing as he did that his membership base in the SA was made up of predominantly poor and unemployed men -- would have committed to bringing a large presence of Nazis to German Day in Coburg without at least some way of getting them there from Munich, which was still the largest membership population in Bavaria at that time. If he had either failed to show up at all or if he arrived with a hundred or fewer men behind him, that would have been a huge problem for the future of the Party. Perhaps each traveler was asked to either reimburse the cost of his round-trip ticket or to contribute as much toward it as he could?

Since we also know that the major altercations took place on the Saturday and overnight, Hitler certainly gained the great advantage of being able to present such a sizable force at the town square on the Sunday at noon because more than half of the Nazi participants on Sunday had gotten to Coburg either overnight or on Sunday morning, on their own. If Hitler's force had been left to march from the shooting gallery on Sunday morning with just the injured and bedraggled remnant of the contingent he brought with him from Munich, many of which had fought in the town streets throughout the night and probably looked pretty bloody, the Coburg Fortress gathering on Sunday could well have gone the other way.

Br. James

Wonderful thread,gives great meaning, and brings to life the Coburg badge. thanks, Carl