by Wm. Harris on 18 Sep 2004 18:22 All,
I pitched this idea to Marcus and he gave his blessings to try it. My idea is this: that we start up an 'AHF Virtual Museum/Collection' of Third Reich militaria. As a pilot project, I'm proposing that we start with medals and decorations.
A lot of folks come on the board to post pictures of their collections -- that's great. But it might be more enjoyable (and more organized) if all such posts were made in one thread. I know I for one would like to see one consolidated collection rather than a random smattering of items, something not unlike the 'Let's see those firearms' thread in the Various Militaria section. It would also be nice if posts made in this thread could include some information about the decorations being shown.
My only request would be that we avoid repetitiveness. I'm sure we all have an EK II in our collection, so there's no need to keep posting them over and over again. The EK I, on the other hand, had many variations and could therefore be shown several times and remain interesting. Cuff titles and badges are of course welcome too.
I'll get us started with an easy one: the Kriegsverdienstkreuz 2. Klasse mit Schwertern (War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords).
Instituted in October 1939 to recognize courageous acts of military personnel not necessarily in contact with the enemy. It took the form of a bronze plated Maltese cross measuring 49 mm. The arms have flat sides and a pebbled centre. The central disc of oakleaves contains a mobile swastika on the obverse and the date '1939' on the reverse. The ribbon consists of the reversed colours of the Iron Cross ribbon. Total distribution totaled 6,134,950.
Now let's get this collection started!
Bill
Axis History Forum
This is an apolitical forum for discussions on the Axis nations, as well as the First and Second World Wars in general hosted by Marcus Wendel's Axis History Factbook in cooperation with Michael Miller's Axis Biographical Research and Christoph Awender's WW2 day by day.
