German Crosses in Gold

[Watchdog]

That is an impress collection of DKiG. I only have one and thought I was satisfied with that but your display here has me seriously envious

I also find that having information about the recipient adds greatly to the award itself because it becomes more poignant and historically relevant.

The Tiesler documents are particularly evocative to me as whilst serving in Berlin I lived in Charlottenburg (now Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and I knew all the streets mentioned from both off duty time and from patrolling them on duty. Hohenzollerndamm runs into Clayalle which will be well known to any US Berlin vets here.

The comments in the margin about his marriage are interesting.

Indeed they are.

For members who don't have any German;

The second is simply official confirmation of his last known Berlin address which would I suppose be for local entitlement reasons etc.

However, the first says;

"With effect from 20 July 1944, the deceased and Gabriele Olga Lemke have been legally married with consequences of the Federal Law on the Legal Effects of the Declaration of a Notifying Marriage of 29 March 1951."

So, an official/legal record of their marriage when other records may well have been destroyed in the final battle for Berlin.

This, dating from the '50s when the Federal Republic was doing a lot of housekeeping to get the State working again would have been critical in respect of the widow's rights in respect of war pension and especially matters of probate. To my mind (albeit that there could be other legal reasons for this to be recorded) this is pretty strong evidence that his widow survived the war.

Thanks for this really interesting thread. I hope it prompts further discussion.

Regards

Mark

PS I love the German language's idiosyncrasies. Just as English has many strange sounding names for things that tend to obccure what they actually are, German takes no prisoners; Sterebuch = Death Book!

[ME110]

Very nice collection of rare pieces.

[mauser9]

Definitely an awesome collection and the fact you know where they came from. Beautiful pieces and thanks for sharing them with us.

[TWS]

Wonderful collection, Todd.
I have only ever handled one (1) DKIG and I was surprised by how heavy there are.
A very substantial award.

And at that moment you realized why the cloth version was so popular!

I've read/heard more than once that the troops referred to the DK as "Hitler's fried egg".

[TWS]

This, dating from the '50s when the Federal Republic was doing a lot of housekeeping to get the State working again would have been critical in respect of the widow's rights in respect of war pension and especially matters of probate. To my mind (albeit that there could be other legal reasons for this to be recorded) this is pretty strong evidence that his widow survived the war.

Thanks for chiming in Mark. Yes, Gabriele Tiesler did survive the war. I have a few post-war documents to her.
I even had a friend in Germany call a couple Tiesler's out of the phone book and try to carefully and politely make an inquiry to see if he could locate any living relatives for me, but it didn't bear fruit.

[TWS]

This, dating from the '50s when the Federal Republic was doing a lot of housekeeping to get the State working again would have been critical in respect of the widow's rights in respect of war pension and especially matters of probate. To my mind (albeit that there could be other legal reasons for this to be recorded) this is pretty strong evidence that his widow survived the war.

Thanks for this really interesting thread. I hope it prompts further discussion.

Regards

Mark

A sad postscript: I have a document to Gabriele Tiesler from the state of Bavaria finance branch office in Ansbach dated 1956 rejecting her request/claim to any survivor's benefits.