Gau Thüringen

[der-hase-fee]

Hi,

Nice stickpin. I wish I had the Thuringen Gau Comm. Book which lists all 1,000 recipients of the gau badge at the time.

James

Not sure its 1,000, but they are listed by name in alphabetical order - no number reference.

[ErichS]

Gary, you have a nice collection but I have my doubts on your stick pin. The only one that I'm sure of or would want are those marked .800.

[Gary Symonds]

Gary, you have a nice collection but I have my doubts on your stick pin. The only one that I'm sure of or would want are those marked .800.

Eric:
Because you made it clear you will not buy it, if you ever encounter another L/18 Thuringen stickpin in zinc, give the guy my name. I will always buy another, since these are war time orginal. As you know, the "L" system went into effect on 3/1/41, 70 years ago yesterday.

[ErichS]

Eric:
Because you made it clear you will not buy it, if you ever encounter another L/18 Thuringen stickpin in zinc, give the guy my name. I will always buy another, since these are orginal.

Gary, they very well could be original, but for me I like the .800 silver ones. To each his own!

[Military]

Erich,

Thank you for clarifying my earlier questions.
Just a point further - where the first 1000 in bronze (hence numbered)?
How does the silver variant differ from that of the bronze piece?

Sorry for the questions, but thank you Erich.

Mil

[ErichS]

Erich,

Thank you for clarifying my earlier questions.
Just a point further - where the first 1000 in bronze (hence numbered)?
How does the silver variant differ from that of the bronze piece?

Sorry for the questions, but thank you Erich.

Mil

The silver badge is the only one referenced as the official badge. The bronze badge did seem to exist but their purpose is unknown.

[der-hase-fee]

I have a matte 800 silver badge which is one of the badges awarded to VIP's, who are not part of the original 1000, which is hand engraved with a 991.

Now being offered for $2,000 http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=499026

I have never before heard that the numbers are supposed to be the last three digits of the party number ?

[ErichS]

Now being offered for $2,000 http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=499026

I have never before heard that the numbers are supposed to be the last three digits of the party number ?

That's a new to me as well regarding the Party number. References?

[JoeW]

That's a new to me as well regarding the Party number. References?

Where do these collector myths come from? Whether it is the one above or the myth of 1000 Gauadlers to the oldest party members in Thuringia and later issue pieces "honor" awards with different finishes. Where do collectors come up with these stories?

According to the Gau issued publication from summer 1938, as of 31.12.1937, 1139 Thuringen "silberen Gauadlers" were issued to a variety of party members, mostly Alte Garde as only 8% of the party numbers listed were over 100 000. There is no mention of special issue for numbers over 1000, or of a bronze version. As a matter of fact, the list is alphabetical and contains only the party number.

One of the badges shown on a link above is 1393. It may well be original. There is documentation that a Thuringen Gauadler was awarded to an SS officer in December 1939. So the bronze versions exist and may well be original. But the only documentation extant is for 1138 silver Gauadlers.

Does anyone have any other source documentation on the Gau badge?

It might make an interesting thread to show variations in the pins, as some are quite obvious.

[ErichS]

Joe, thanks for the reference information. Like most awards collectors seem to fill in the blanks at will.

[Gary Symonds]

According to Niemann in vol 2 page 317, the Thuringen Gau Honor badge was issued to "the 1,000 longest serving Party members", who were issued badges with the "award number". He informs us that the badges without award numbers were awarded to "distinguished party members".

The badge that I posted in this thread and for sale in the estand was awarded without a number. The recipient on his own for his own reasons had a jeweller hand engrave the number 991, which I have to assume are the last three digits of his Party number.

As to the finish on the 800 silver examples, it is my opinion that the elite 1,000 had a highly polished silver finish, in additon to a machine punched award number. The fact that my example was issued without an award number and is in a matte silver finish, provides some evidence that at a Party meeting your level of honor could be known at a glance. Let's face it the Third Reich was not about equality. Distinctions were made between the sheeps and the goats and that was the way it was.

My opinion about the finish differences is just that, my opinion. It would certainly help if we had other pictures of the .800 silver Gau badges issued without numbers.

[JoeW]

Gary, thank you for giving us Niemann's opinion, no doubt as valuable as his COAs. Does he bother to offer any documentation for his creative theories that are totally bogus? How does one accept his story that the 1000 longest serving party members were issued badges with the award number when there are numbered badges over 1000? Are all badges over 1000 supposed to be fake?

I would opine that your hand engraved example was a jeweler replacement bearing the Gauadler issue number of the recipient who lost his original. And, that all unnumbered awards were liberated unissued stock. Just my opinion of course, as there is no documentation on that.

There is no period documentation explaining the differences in finish. As we do not know the manufacturer(s) of the silver version, one could also explain the differences by different manufacturers. But with only a few thousand made, it would not seem economical. Six five pick'em.

Does anyone have a good photo of the Bill Stump grouping of the bronze eagles with which to read the maker's name?

[ErichS]

The bottom line is, the only real information on any award is found in period references and the rest is just speculation. Thanks Joe for adding the information from the references in your collection.

[Gary Symonds]

Gary, thank you for giving us Niemann's opinion, no doubt as valuable as his COAs. Does he bother to offer any documentation for his creative theories that are totally bogus? How does one accept his story that the 1000 longest serving party members were issued badges with the award number when there are numbered badges over 1000? Are all badges over 1000 supposed to be fake?

I would opine that your hand engraved example was a jeweler replacement bearing the Gauadler issue number of the recipient who lost his original. And, that all unnumbered awards were liberated unissued stock. Just my opinion of course, as there is no documentation on that.

There is no period documentation explaining the differences in finish. As we do not know the manufacturer(s) of the silver version, one could also explain the differences by different manufacturers. But with only a few thousand made, it would not seem economical. Six five pick'em.

Does anyone have a good photo of the Bill Stump grouping of the bronze eagles with which to read the maker's name?

Joe:
Your opinion is well taken. Dr. Doehle in the 1942 edition provides no information about the Thuringen badge. You could be very correct about Niemann.

All we really have are the badges themselves. As I mentioned, it would really help if we had more postings from members depicting badges without numbers. The problem is that this badge is so rare, that we seldom see .800 silver examples to be examined.

[JoeW]

Gary, I must apologize for the sarcasm of my last comment. I am just pulling my foot from my mouth. Additional correspondence to me concerning the Niemann book indicates that he produced two examples of award-permits that would seem to substantiate his "1000 oldest" statement. In fact, I had a photo of one of the examples he pictured in my Thuringen file, but foolishly failed to refer to it before making my above comment. There is another of these permits pictured in Littlejohn/Dodkins Vol 2. But these award-permits would seem to be problematic themselves. Notice one of the ones Niemann pictured was awarded to a Fr. v. Eberstein with a party number 4039. However v. Eberstein's party number on the SS DAL is 15067.

But the 1000 oldest on the award-permit is obviously dated and more were issued as listed in the official 1938 Gau publication.

I have one of the 800 badges I purchased some years ago along with a pair of GPBs. The owner of the GPBs is also listed on the Gauadler list with a correct party number. I will try and assemble some photos of Gauadlers and perhaps this can become a sticky.