Decorations being taken away as German soldiers surrendered?

[Vera M]

Hello, I've been having this question for a long time. I looked into various books (mostly memoirs from German soldiers) but they didn't really answer my question.

So, what did the Allies do to the German POWs whom had received decorations in the war, such as the Iron Cross or Close Combat Badge? Did they simply take the decorations away during frisking and never gave back? And was there a difference between the Soviets and the West on this specific question?

Thanks in advance!

Vera M.

[Laurence Strong]

I was looking up some stuff in a book called "CANADA'S FIGHTING VEHICLES" and came upon this photo.
I wish I had been there for prisoner processing

I think this is the result of several weeks of acquisition. Note that he has the France and Germany Star ribbon up. The Warrant states a cut-off of May 8, 1945 so this picture must be late May at the absolute earliest, as it seems the majority of the awards are not combat related. he is also a MM winner


I wonder how much his chestfull is worth at todays prices

[Vera M]

Wow, thanks for the picture, Laurence. I wonder what he did with all the decorations after seizing them from POWs.

A bit more to add to my original post:

In the book Blood Red Snow written by Günter K. Koschorrek, the author mentioned that during his stay as a POW in a Czech hospital which was under American surveillance, he managed to trade in all his decorations with Americans for cigarettes. "Both white and black GIs are crazy about German medals, and they'll probably boast about them when they gey back home. They even come to us in the hospital here and try to outbid each other in cartons of cigarettes for our awards." He did not mention anything about the medals again when he was sent to a POW camp later on, probably because he didn't have any more.

In other memoirs written by German soldiers who were taken prisoners by the Red Amy (and managed to stay alive and returned to their homeland years later), they more or less mentioned their belongings of monetary value, such as watches, rings, even boots had they been in good condition, were confiscated by the Soviet soldiers who were not necessarily the ones in charge of frisking process. To my disappointment, none of them made mention of the medals. I could only guess that they were among the things taken by the Soviet soldiers but am not sure since, unlike their American counterpart who could go back to America and brag about the decorations as their prize on the battlefield, things engraved with swastika could as well be a taboo given the heated anti-Fascism in USSR (which is my guess).

And, is it possible for a German soldier leaving his medals at home for safekeeping instead of wearing them to the frontline?

Any feedback is appreciated.

[hucks216]

I think it would of been the same with the Russians although I agree that it may of been dangerous in Stalinist Russia to of been found with such items in their possession, plus I would say that their hatred of what the Swastika represented and what the Germans had done to their country & people had a bearing on just how widespread such collecting was.
The taking of German awards was widespread however in the western Allied PoW camps etc, and usually once taken they weren't given back with the Allied soldiers tending to see such items as fair spoils to the victor. There was the odd exception when officers complained to the Commanding Officer of the PoW camp about his awards being taken that were then retrieved (I remember reading about such an instance but I can not remember where). The taking of such awards is how alot of these items have eventually ended up in the collections of many today.

As for safekeeping at home, I believe that it was possible for a soldier to buy a duplicate issue of an award so that he could keep one at home and also wear one, if he had the money to do so, and I know that some of those who won the high end awards such as the Knights Cross did buy a second one to enable the original one to stay at home while he wore the second one, or in some cases they would use an Iron Cross 2nd Class as a Knight's Cross substitute.

[Larso]

Rudel was angry that his 'high Hungarian' medal was stolen while he slept the night after he surrendered at an American airfield. He complained and apparently efforts were made to retrieve it but to no avail. The point I suppose was that he then didn't complain about the rest going missing (as far as I can recall), so it seems that very senior officers, if they managed to surrender to someone high enough up the chain, might have managed to keep theirs. I wonder if anyone else has a story that supports this?

[propwash]

I had a friend who as a member of the British Army fought his way from Holland into Germany and was part of the occupation army based in Berlin as a driver for a British General. He recalled visiting buildings where Russian soldiers were clearing cabinets of papers and burning them on bonfires. Some of these were medal certificates with attached medals.The soldiers showed no interest in them apart from to burn them as quickly as possible and allowed the British soldiers to take what they wanted as souvenirs. Only a few were taken as my friend said Germany was swimming in decorations available for a cigarette or two. In those days ten cigarettes and a tin of corned beef would get you a night out and a women in Berlin.
One souvenir my friend did cherish was the piece of red marble from Hitlers desk at the Chancellery. The Russians were not so keen on Military loot but liked any sort of time piece, from watches to grandfather clocks and anything domestic. They would strip a house clean before moving back to the Russian sector.He said at first relationships with Red Army soldiers were very good if no senior NCO or Officers were about but these were soon replaced with fresh soldiers who stuck to the letter of the law.
Knives ,flags and medals made good souvenirs for British soldiers. Customs officers would confiscate any sort of fire arm and the soldier would find himself on a charge.My mate being in the Guards said it was not a good predicament to find oneself.
It is the old story of to the victor the spoils. The ordinary soldier probably saw the medals and such as trappings of a lost cause and could not careless. Generals however were more vain and pompous and believed they still had some standing in a very different world.

[Panzermahn]

That's what the Allies deemed as "souvenir-hunting", an euphemism of looting medals and decorations of an honourable fighting opponent. Which explained why there was a huge mlitaria market of Third Reich-related medals and accoutrements in North America today as thousands of GIs send home their "souvenirs" soon after D-Day

By the way, I never came across a single case of a German soldier hunting for Allied medals or souvenirs or posed in one.

[hucks216]

By the way, I never came across a single case of a German soldier hunting for Allied medals or souvenirs or posed in one.

There are plenty of occaisions where German troops took Allied items for souvenirs and to think they didn't is naive. There are plenty of photos of German troops posing with Russian flags or an airman taking something from a B-17 as a trophy for instance and in fact Jersey suffered a shortage of coins at one point due to German troops sending them home as souvenirs. In that respect a soldier is a soldier no matter the country. As for medals, soldiers in Western armies didn't wear their medals in combat.

[division azul]

thats also why there are so many 3rd reich items in the u.s. probably

[Panzermahn]

By the way, I never came across a single case of a German soldier hunting for Allied medals or souvenirs or posed in one.

There are plenty of occaisions where German troops took Allied items for souvenirs and to think they didn't is naive. There are plenty of photos of German troops posing with Russian flags or an airman taking something from a B-17 as a trophy for instance and in fact Jersey suffered a shortage of coins at one point due to German troops sending them home as souvenirs. In that respect a soldier is a soldier no matter the country. As for medals, soldiers in Western armies didn't wear their medals in combat.

It was a typo error. I meant to say

By the way, I never came across a single case of a German soldier hunting for Allied medals as souvenirs or posed in one

Capturing enemy banner are considered incontrevertible proofs of one's unit victory in battle and usually enemy banners are kept under a particular unit's archives rather an individual soldier personal belongings which is the common practice of military forces in the world.

An airman taking something from B-17 is to indicate a mark of his success of shooting it down (as well as proofs required for claims of shooting down an enemy warplane). I am pretty sure that the majority of German soldiers purchased legally the coins of Jersey.

The differences between Allied hunting for "souvenirs" and Axis ones are that the former usually looted medals and decorations of whom belonged personally to German soldiers.

The French soldiers wore their decorations in combat just like the Germans do but I had never came across any case of German soldiers looting military decorations of their opponents. In fact, even the Russians and other Slavic personnel serving as volunteers of the wehrmacht and Waffen SS units were even allowed to keep their WW1 or WW2 decorations awarded for bravery or valour fighting against the Germans themselves!

It can be only inferred that the Germans respected brave soldiers, no matter which country they fought against

[Panzermahn]

In my opinion, the behaviour of some of the typical rank-and-file of the Western Allies is a disgrace especially when it comes to looting decorations for bravery earned by the frontline Feldgrau soldier. Even the Soviets, for all their massive raping and plundering in Eastern Europe, never considered taking away or looting the decorations of the frontline German soldier.

In fact numerous anecdotes from former German POWs shows that the Soviets (especially the frontoviki) actually accorded respect for the normal landser who is decorated especially with Knight's Cross.

Consider the treatment meted out to captured German officers in the Western Front. Jochen Peiper's RK was snatched off by American troops when he was captured by them

[hucks216]

..Consider the treatment meted out to captured German officers in the Western Front. Jochen Peiper's RK was snatched off by American troops when he was captured by them

Panzermahn, it is obvious from your comments here and in other threads that you have a very distorted/biased view of the German Armed Forces in WW2 in that they were the hard done by ones and whatever they did was within reason. For that reason I am no longer repsonding to anything you post.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Well, in one point he is right: it was common for anglo-anglian soldiers to steal nealy everything from captured enemy soldiers while it very uncommon to do so for german soldiers. But that might be causes by the anglian military tradition were it was even for officers a normal think to loot captured enemy officers.....which was an absolute nogo for a german officer.

Jan-Hendrik

[JamesL]

I don't really recall seeing US infantrymen wearing their medals and ribbons into combat during the war. None of the US infantrymen I knew ever mentioned doing so. So the Germans lacked the opportunity to steal medals from Americans.

It was not unknown for US infantry to be robbed of their personal belongings by their German captors. Perhaps it would be helpful to refer to an earlier thread.

10th and 21st Panzer Divisions - Slaughter of American POW's at Sidi Bou Zid, Tunisia

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 3&start=15

Also
http://www.34infdiv.org/history/168inf/ ... akeRpt.pdf

One of my former co-workers was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans took all his personal belongs including gloves and socks. He considered himself lucky to have kept his uniform and boots.

[Panzermahn]

I don't really recall seeing US infantrymen wearing their medals and ribbons into combat during the war. None of the US infantrymen I knew ever mentioned doing so. So the Germans lacked the opportunity to steal medals from Americans.

I beg to differ. This is nothing more than defaming insinuation that if the American soldiers wore their decorations in combat, there are possibility that Germans may steal their decorations.

The French wore their decorations during combat (even medals from WW1). Joseph Darnand even worn his Croix de Guerre WW1 in a German uniform, the same with Monsignor Jean Mayol de Lupe who wore his numerous French decorations in his LVF uniform. Again, I never came across any German soldiers looted the decorations of French POWs or posed in one.

One of my former co-workers was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. The Germans took all his personal belongs including gloves and socks. He considered himself lucky to have kept his uniform and boots.

The gloves and socks belongs to the nation's armed forces that provided it to their soldiers. Utilizing enemy material such as gloves or socks or first-aid kits or enemy rifles and munitions is a common practice by all armed forces in the world during that time (and some may argue even until today)