Kriegsverdienstkreuz ribbon

**Evgeni M** · 12-05-2015, 02:06 PM

Dear All,

Recently I came across this ribbon in an album. However it's bigger than the regular. Any idea where this one is coming from (ritterkreuz des kriegsverdienstkreuzes?).

Would appreciate your suggestions.

Thanks.

EM

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 12-05-2015 02:06 PM

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**Adrian Stevenson** · 12-05-2015, 05:14 PM

Ritterkreuz des kriegsverdienstkreuzes ribbon is about 38mm wide.

**Evgeni M** · 12-05-2015, 07:14 PM

Its 44mm

**Adrian Stevenson** · 12-05-2015, 08:10 PM

Then that sounds like it will be an RK ribbon!

**Evgeni M** · 12-05-2015, 08:14 PM

I wounder what its doing there.... And I cannot find any record of Herman Schmedt (Hauptman)

**Adrian Stevenson** · 12-06-2015, 12:11 PM

No idea. But he would not have been awarded the RK der KVK. He was killed before the award came into being.

Cheers, Ade.

**HPL2008** · 12-06-2015, 12:23 PM

by Adrian Stevenson

No idea. But he would not have been awarded the RK der KVK. He was killed before the award came into being.

Ade is right (as usual). The KVK was instituted by a decree of 18th October 1939.

(Also, this would be a most unusual award for a company commander in a rifle regiment to begin with.)

Of course, if Schmedt's death notice is in this album, it wouldn't have been his album anyway (unless somebody else "concluded" it by pasting it in). It is far likelier that the album belonged to one of his friends or relatives and that this person was the KVK recipient. Either that, or these additions were made by somebody at some time during the decades since the end of the war...

Does the rest of the album give any clues?

**Evgeni M** · 12-06-2015, 12:27 PM

That was also my thinking, therefore I couldn't figure why it was there... One of the options that it was awarded posthumously or its not an RK KVK ribbon after all.