As an addendum (I should have Google'd him before)... Here is the relevant page on his family's genealogical website:
Gunter d'Alquen
As an addendum (I should have Google'd him before)... Here is the relevant page on his family's genealogical website:
Gunter d'Alquen
Thank you, dear colleague for your complete answer, to which I say: Donnerwetter. Then I likely passed him in Cologne or Bonn at some point and did not even know it, since 1998 is yesterday as far as I am concerned. I used to spend a lot of time in said locales until the capital moved to the Spree and Havel.
I also own the Sammelbiographie from Schoenigh Verlag you mention, which is superb. It is a reflection of how my collateral responsibilities have ruined my capacity as a student of history that I buy all these books and seldom read them properly, because I am either worrying about keeping our ministerial responsibilities afloat in wartime, recovering from jet lag, and posting inanities about militaria on websites instead of proper reading as I once did.
Thanks so much und einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr.
Very interesting. However, when was his promotion to Standartenfuhrer? Interesting how, during wartime, he continued to wear the black uniform while broadcasting:
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
On second thought, I am automatically assuming that his A-SS and W-SS ranks were the same, which we know did not always occur. So both the tuxedo shot and the broadcasting pic could have been pre-war pics, especially as he is not wearing any combat awards in the broadcasting picture.
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
You beat me to the answer: I agree that these are very likely not wartime images. According to the SS-Dienstalterslisten, he was promoted to Standartenführer in the Allgemeine-SS on 30 January 1937.
His promotion to Standartenführer der Reserve with the Waffen-SS occurred at a later date during the war which is unknown to me.
The ranks were by no means identical, just as high ranking party figures had far lower ranks in the armed forces according to merit, career, et cetera. Heydrich was surely no flag officer in the Luftwaffe. I assume the images at home in Wansee with the Gesellschaftanzug as well as the radio studio are of an earlier date. But there were surely figures in party, state, and economy with SS rank who were not entitled to wear the field grey uniform, and who wore black uniforms for special occasions during the war. And the part timers in the Allgemeine SS who remained on service wore black as well to the bitter end as this thread otherwise shows.
Thanks again for the d'Alquen material.
You are quite welcome. Actually, the discovery of the genealogical website - over which I probably would never have stumbled were it not for my internet search prompted by this thread - was quite a nice surprise for me, too.
One final bit of interesting info on said website: It was actually created and administered by none other than Gunter d'Alquen's son Ingo Gunter before his death in 2008:
Ingo Gunter d'Alquen
Thank you for this, too. All very interesting. One sees here how aristocratic Ahnenforschung morphed into the racial ideology of the SS and the back into Familiengeschichte of a more normal kind.
I cited a very good scholarly book on the Ahnenpass in another post which makes this transition tangible from the 19th century into the 20th century. Thanks again, and also thanks for that wonderful site with of the woman's Fotoatelier. This Ingo d'Alquen died a young man.
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