Hitler's Iron Cross

Discussions on the personalities of the Wehrmacht and of the organizations not covered in the other sections. Hosted by askropp and Frech.
Post Reply
W.L. Shirer
Member
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Apr 2006, 05:26
Location: Brazil

Hitler's Iron Cross

#1

Post by W.L. Shirer » 13 Apr 2006, 03:34

I read some material that throws a little bit of a shadow in the way Hitler earned his iron cross in WWI. At the same time, every author seems to agree that he was brave as a messenger boy and a tough cookie as a trench inhabitant. One of these authors also wrote that the german army was handling the IC's in a wholesale manner at the end of the war. What makes his earning of the IC more suspicious is the fact that he was never promoted during the conflit.

How did he get it? Did he really deserve it or he managed to get one to raise himself above the average army soldier? Is his records as a soldier that good or they were tampered by the nazis in order to increase his mythical image?

Can anyone help me with this one?


:|

W.L. Shirer
Member
Posts: 6
Joined: 12 Apr 2006, 05:26
Location: Brazil

#2

Post by W.L. Shirer » 14 Apr 2006, 15:19

One other thing on the subject...

Hitler had this very strange bound with one of his immediate superiors when he served in the Imperial Army. If I am not mistaken the guy's name is Amman. The ex-vagabond from Vienna always tried to pleased him with important functions and big rewards (some people say he became a millionaire when the nazi regime was consolidated). What did Amman have against him?

I read also that his army records were obtained by a political enemy before he could get it back. Himmler was on its track but someone got it first. Is it true? Was the guy done away on the light of the long knives? Did any of these records survive WWII?

Tks...


User avatar
Winston Smith
Member
Posts: 256
Joined: 16 Jul 2005, 09:38
Location: Israel
Contact:

#3

Post by Winston Smith » 14 Apr 2006, 15:32

W.L. Shirer wrote: I read also that his army records were obtained by a political enemy before he could get it back. Himmler was on its track but someone got it first. Is it true? Was the guy done away on the light of the long knives? Did any of these records survive WWII?

Tks...
I think you refering to the records of him in the A-H army, when he was in Munich he return onece to Vienna in order to examine for militry service and he was found medicly unfit to serve, the records dissapear before the Anchluss and were published after the war.

User avatar
Jeremy Dixon
Member
Posts: 3590
Joined: 06 Oct 2002, 13:19
Location: England

#4

Post by Jeremy Dixon » 15 Apr 2006, 13:53

I thought I read somewhere that Hitler was awarded the Iron Cros 1st Clas twice, a great acheivement for a corporal. Awards didn't always mean promotion!!!

User avatar
Winston Smith
Member
Posts: 256
Joined: 16 Jul 2005, 09:38
Location: Israel
Contact:

#5

Post by Winston Smith » 15 Apr 2006, 16:23

trbooks wrote:I thought I read somewhere that Hitler was awarded the Iron Cros 1st Clas twice, a great acheivement for a corporal. Awards didn't always mean promotion!!!
This impossible! I think you mean he was awarder the EK 2 and then won the EK1.

User avatar
Jeremy Dixon
Member
Posts: 3590
Joined: 06 Oct 2002, 13:19
Location: England

#6

Post by Jeremy Dixon » 15 Apr 2006, 16:34

Yes of course you're right. But I do believe he was awarded these awards after brave acts as a mesenger in the trenches, the award of Iron Cross 1st Clas was seldom given to soldiers of the rank of Corporal!!! I don't belive in this new "conspiracy theory"

Elisa
Member
Posts: 79
Joined: 12 Apr 2004, 00:57
Location: A U S T R I A

#7

Post by Elisa » 16 Apr 2006, 21:20

Shirer! the name was Amann and he had nothing against Hitler.

User avatar
Mimi
Member
Posts: 121
Joined: 15 Apr 2006, 07:46
Location: Galveston, Tx USA
Contact:

iron medal hitler

#8

Post by Mimi » 20 Apr 2006, 02:48

In August 1914, Hitler was drafted as Privy in a Bavarian Regiment and on October 1914, Hitler's regiment completed its training and the brigade received its colors. Like two million other German volunteers, Hitler was elated at the prospect of facing the enemy, "I am terribly excited," he wrote his lodgers the Popps, "I hope we shall get to England." He was assigned the mission of running dispatches to the front and back to headquarters which he did with outstanding bravery during all four years. Promoted to Lance-Corporal after the 1st battle of Ypres, he was granted the Iron Cross 2st class as soon as December 1914.

Although, Hitler was caught in a lot of serious fighting, the only injury he received was a minor shell splinter to the face. In October 1916, however, he did become a war casualty. It was near Bapaume, a shell landed near his foxhole and Hitler emerged with a serious wound to his left thigh. Later in 1917, after the 3rd battle of Ypres, Hitler was granted the Military Cross for Merit, 3rd class with swords but he was never promoted to Sergeant. On May 9, 1918, Hitler received his third citation for a feat performed at Fontaine (France): the Regimental Decoration for "outstanding bravery in the face of the enemy." A week later he also received his “Medal for Wounded” for his previous leg wound. As one of Hitler's officers, Lieutenant Horn, would state, "If Adolf Hitler had been promoted to the rank of sergeant, the regiment would have lost one of its best dispatch carriers."

In August 1918, after the failure of the massive German offensive, Hitler received his fifth and sixth medals. One was the Military Service Medal, 3rd class, for outstanding service, the other was The Iron Cross, 1st Class, "for personal bravery and general merit." Colonel von Tubeuf commented about Hitler, “There was no circumstance or situation that would have prevented him from volunteering for the most difficult, arduous and dangerous tasks, and he was always willing to sacrifice his safety and life and tranquility for his fatherland and for others.”

The recommendation for Hitler's Iron Cross First Class was signed on July 17, 1918 by Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Freiherr von Godin and read: “As a runner his coolness and dash in both trench and open warfare have been exemplary, and invariably he has shown himself ready to volunteer for tasks in the most difficult situations and at great danger to himself. Whenever communications have been totally disrupted at a critical moment in a battle, it has been thanks to Hitler's unflagging and devoted efforts that important messages continued to get through despite every difficulty.” The man who put forward the paperwork for the hardware was the regimental adjutant, Captain Hugo Guttman, a Jew. Put more simply, one can think that Hitler found during the war many opportunities to indulge in his Wagnerian taste for heroics and death.

Source :http://schikelgruber.net/hitler4.html

Post Reply

Return to “The Dieter Zinke Axis Biographical Research Section”