The common Landser - Fritz Müller

[TWS]

The "everyman" Soldat with a very common name: Fritz Müller. A small grouping to this young NCO. All I have of his is pictured here. I do not know his fate and the name is so common that the Volksbund grave registration site is full of soldiers bearing the same name. Without his date of birth, I cannot match him. So I do not know if he survived the war. If he did it was against the odds as the 256th Infanterie Division was effectively destroyed during Operation Bagration. This is all the family kept. I would like to think he survived and made sure to hold onto his EKI and the document awarding it as that would have been his highest and proudest decoration. The EKI award document has an original signature of Generalleutnant and Knight's Cross Wearer Paul Danhauser who was the 256. ID commander at the time of the award. 

[AZPhil]

Very Nice! It's great you can at the least put the face to the award. I take it that is him sporting the EK1 in that pic?
Excellent group of doc's and pic's with the award.

Semper Fi
Phil

[real steel]

His name is as common in German as our "John Smith" is in English.
Nice presentation Todd
D.

[Ullergaard]

Well presented Todd.
Great to do the man honour with this little grouping.
Sure he would be proud! Well done.

[TWS]

Very Nice! It's great you can at the least put the face to the award. I take it that is him sporting the EK1 in that pic?
Excellent group of doc's and pic's with the award.

Semper Fi
Phil

Thanks Phil. I would like to think that the EKI that came with his estate is the same one in the photo, but hard to be 100% sure. It likely is, as lower-ranking soldiers did not often buy extra copies of their awards like senior officers did. I will say that I cannot detect any differences between the actual EKI and the one in the photo that would show it not to be the same. He definitely had this EKI back home as it came with his estate and he definitely had the one in the photo back home because he sat for a studio portrait with it on.

[TWS]

Well presented Todd.
Great to do the man honour with this little grouping.
Sure he would be proud! Well done.

Thanks Brian! Yes, I like collecting, preserving, and displaying groupings to the "little guy" for a couple reasons. One is they are very affordable compared to "famous" soldiers like general officers or RKT's, etc. The other is that if a collector like me doesn't do it, who will? Who will preserve the memory of this soldier? In many cases it is no longer the family, sadly. These kinds of groupings are coming out of Germany as the grand kids or even great grand kids decide they would rather have a fist full of cash rather than preserve and honor the memory of their ancestor. My German ancestors came over to the U.S. before the TR, but I still feel a bit of sadness that many of the current holders of these small estates feel no desire to hang onto them. These are the (comparitively) "unknown soldiers" while the high ranking or highly decorated ones are covered in many pieces of literature. It's up to collectors like us to preserve the memories of soldiers like Fritz.

[TabsTabs1964]

Hi Todd
It is a fantastic presentation, although the elements that form it are simple.
Getting to face a soldier's name is always a wonderful thing. I imagine that many of us always wonder what the story of the man behind the photo or the decoration of our collection will be. I often wonder, like you, if he survived the war or what was his fatal destiny, in another case.
Congratulations and continue to make, among all, that many men and their stories remain alive.

Best regards.
Santi