Iron Cross-POW papers and photos

MedalFuhrer

I promised to post these up ages ago, but die to work and other commits I haven't had much time to come online. And it took a few hours to scan them all in! So here goes:

I was after an Iron Cross and happened across this collection which was a bonus asI love old photographs no matter what they are about.

If anyone can give me additional information or point me in the direction of how to research more about this man I would appreciate it.


Hans Josef Gustav Fleischmann, born on 9th of February 1922 was 17 years of age when WW2 started. He was a metal worker and lived at 26 Carolinen Strasse, Hamburg, Germany. He then either joined the Wehrmacht or was conscripted.

His Iron Cross:



His Eastern Front Medal:



A few of his personal photos as there are about 50 photographs in total.

MedalFuhrer

MedalFuhrer

His POW release papers for a British P.O.W. camp.

Morlar

Thanks for posting these. It might be tricky to get more information on this man. In this picture the division id insignia on the shoulder is hard to make out, at first I thought Infantry Division 17, but not sure. There are some collectors on WAF etc who will be able to ID it however.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd36/markcro/2.jpg

Unfortunately I could not make out any vehicle emblem/ insignia on the motorcycle shot :

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd36/markcro/14.jpg

Vehicle licence plates can also be useful & I believe this one

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd36/markcro/21.jpg

is WH 249112

I will check bookmarks later to see if this one is in a range which is recorded. Maybe one of the native German speakers can translate the back of that pic for you ?

Loved the mini-halftrack picture btw. Sometimes it is possible to ID the city in Russia by the cathedral :


http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd36/markcro/35.jpg

however I can't make out which city this is. At first I thought Orel but not sure and a lot of them appear similar. Previously I have spent hours going through google images for 'soviet cathedral' 'orthodox cathedral' etc so you can sometimes get lucky that way. Also graves pictures are a good source for identifying location and unit, however the names on these ones are not legible.

Morlar

http://www.wwiidaybyday.com/emblems/nummernschilder/license1.htm

MedalFuhrer

Thanks for the replies Molar. I can post up more photos if you are interested but there are about 50 in total and alot are snow scenes. I loved going through them all. A lovely bonus for me was getting them with the Iron Cross.

MedalFuhrer

Morlar wrote: »

http://www.wwiidaybyday.com/emblems/nummernschilder/license1.htm

Thanks for that link! So from the reg it would fall under:
Wehrkreis XIV Magdeburg=WH 140.000-149.999 and WH 240.000-249.999


So does that mean that the bike was registered in Magdeburg or was stationed there? What does Wehrkreis mean?

Thanks.

MF

Morlar

MedalFuhrer wrote: »

Thanks for that link! So from the reg it would fall under:
Wehrkreis XIV Magdeburg=WH 140.000-149.999 and WH 240.000-249.999


So does that mean that the bike was registered in Magdeburg or was stationed there? What does Wehrkreis mean?

Thanks.

MF

Wehrkreis is Military District, it usually tells you where the unit was stationed. In this case Feldgrau draws a blank :
http://www.feldgrau.com/wehr-xiv.html

It is sometimes worth going through Axis history forum though it too appears to be a bit sparse on this :
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=84925

My experience researching photos is that you have to use every shred of information you can come across, sometimes they all add up to a result sometimes they don't. The best source for information is the caption in the photo album, or writing on the back if it is legible. It can be infuriating sometimes and rewarding other times. If you are lucky you will have photos showing field graves, or road signs, or distinctive buildings which can help you work out which area they were taken in and what time, from that you can work out which part of the campaign they were involved and which battles took place in that area.

If I were you I would post the photo showing the shoulder insignia on a specialist forum (as an example Wehrmacht Awards Forum - photos section), I am not at all sure it is Infantry division 17, if you could narrow that down there will be a wealth of information - for example :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_Infantry_Division_%28Germany%29
& from there you can research individuals and campaigns.

Post back into the thread if you get a result on the shoulder insignia as I would be interested to hear.

Looking here :
http://www.diedeutschewehrmacht.de/
17.Infanterie-Division Wehrkreis XIII Aufgestellt: 15.10.1935 -

so this does not tie in. It is always possible the vehicle did not belong to this unit
XIV unfortunately is not specified in this list.

HerrScheisse

That is a very impressive piece of history - details of the owner of the award!

I see the text - I think I can make out "Viele grusse aus den hohen Norden" or "Many greetings from the High North".

Would this not refer to Norway? Some of the landscapes do look Nordic. Just a guess. I did google earth the town of his birth "Kalten Kirchen" and his residential street name but found nothing but things could have changed a lot since then.

Dr Strange

Kaltenkirchen is situated not far from Hamburg in Schleswig-Holstein in northern Germany.

Here's some info in English:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaltenkirchen

HerrScheisse

I put a space between Kalten and Kirchen like it is written on the document - that is why the search returned nought :P

Dr Strange

HerrScheisse wrote: »

I put a space between Kalten and Kirchen like it is written on the document - that is why the search returned nought :P

It does look like a space but it's actually the way his handwriting is. If you look closely the K at the beginning of Kaltenkrichen is written as a capital K an the one in "kirchen" is actually a small "k" which means there is no space.

Similarily have a look at what looks like the space between "Metall" and "former". Only the "f" in former is small so it's all one word (it would have to be capital in German if the following word is separated by a space and the word is truly separated into two words).