Youngest, Oldest, The First, The Most, and Other Records

[Dieter Zinke]

Alfred Schrag,
* 11. 06.1869 in Stuttgart was
Oberstkriegsgerichtsrat im Generalsrang, then he was at the beginning of 1943 as Reichskriegsanwalt the deputy of the Oberreichskriegsanwalt Dr. Walter Rehdans until the nomination of Reichskriegsanwalt Kraell in June 1943 (who was temporarily charged with the conduct of affairs since April 1943)

When he was released he had 74 years.

His files including a pic are here
https://www2.landesarchiv-bw.de/ofs21/o ... ndort=Schr


From 1868 (* 16.03.1868) was the Kommandeur der Militärärztlichen Akademie, Generalstabsarzt z.V. Prof. Dr. med. Richard Hamann, released 01.08.1944.


Dieter Z.

[Anil]

Hauptmann Walter Adolph (1913 - 1941)

Hauptmann Adolph was awarded the Ritterkreuz on 13 November 1940 after 15 victories. II./JG 26 was the first Luftwaffe unit to transition on to the new Focke Wulf Fw 190 fighter, receiving their first aircraft in July 1941. On 18 September, Adolph led eight aircraft, in his Fw 190 A-1 (W.Nr. 0110 028) “Black <<”, to escort a German tanker off Ostend. They encountered a force of RAF Blenheims escorted by Spitfire and Hurricane fighters. Adolph did not return from the mission and his body was washed up on a Belgian beach three weeks later. It would appear that he had been shot down and killed by the English ace Cyril Babbage (7.27 confirmed, 2.333 probable and 2 damaged victories) of 41 Sqn, RAF off Blankenberge, Belgium. Babbage claimed an unidentified aircraft similar to a Curtiss Hawk. Adolph’s Fw 190 was the first of the type to be lost in aerial combat.

Source : Wikipedia and Kacha's Luftwaffe Page

Thanks for warning Bernd

[Doktor Krollspell]

Could this be the Kriegsmarine "Neger" One-man torpedo operator Horst Berger, a 17 year old Matrose who received the DKiG on 08.07.1944?

The K-Flottille 361 was ordered to move to the Normandy coast on June 13, 1944. This unit was equipped with 60 "Neger" one-man torpedoes. On the night between July 5 and 6, the Neger sailors went into action. The target was the Trout line that protected the allied floating harbours. The actoin was very succesful as several allied ships went down. Walter Gerhold hit and sank the british frigate HMS Trollope and for this action did Gerhold recieve the Knight's Cross.
_ _ _

The two british mine clearing(?) (Minensuchboote) ships HMS Magic and HMS Cato were also sunk that night. The seventeen year old Neger sailor Matrose Horst Berger was involved in the sinking of one of those and for this recieved the German Cross in Gold. At the age of just seventeen, I suppose Berger has had to be one of the absolutely youngest recipients of this award.

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=95671


Regards,

Krollspell

[AlifRafikKhan]

In September 1940, Generaloberst Eugen Ritter von Schobert (1883-1941) was given command of the Eleventh Army. The army was assigned to Army Group South for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. During combat operations in the southern Soviet Union, Schobert and his pilot were killed when their Fieseler Storch observation aircraft crashed in a Soviet minefield...

He was the first Army commander to be killed in action...

[Anil]

SS-Oberscharführer Balthasar Woll the gunner of Wittmann was born in Wemmetsweiler on 1 March 1922.

By the time of Operation Citadel he was one of the best tank crews in his Division, and in September 1943 was awarded the Iron Cross 1st class, having destroyed 80 tanks and 107 anti tank guns.

He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in January 1944 the 1st and only tank gunner to receive the award and in October 1944 promoted to Oberscharführer.

When Wittmann was killed in Normandy in 1944, Woll was in command of his own tank and severely wounded, but survived the war.

Source : Wikipedia, Achtung Panzer.com

[AlifRafikKhan]

okay

the youngest Ritterkreuzträger (as per date of birth)

Gefreiter
Lohrey, Christian
* 03.08.1927 Schonungen
+ 20.03.1996 Schonungen
Ritterkreuz am: 11.03.1945
als: Gefreiter
Funktion: Kompanietruppmelder 3./PzGrenRgt 41

http://www.das-ritterkreuz.de/index_sea ... hword=lohr


(source of picture Scherzers DVD)

chris

edit : photo - exchanged - is now not in the mirror image version anymore ; on behalf of chris44 / Bernd, Mod

The three youngest men to be awarded the RK were Gefreiter Christian Lohrey, awarded the RK on March 11th, 1945 as a Kompanie-Trupp-Melder in 3./Pz.Gr.Reg.41, Oberfähnrich/Leutnant Hans Bretz, awarded the RK on May 6th, 1945 as a Zugführer in PzVernichtungs-Brigade Oberschlesien, and Gefreiter Manfred Kuhnert, awarded the RK on January 22nd, 1944 as a Richtschütze in 14.PzJg-Kompanie/Gr.Reg.442...

Source : http://www.feldgrau.com/rk.html

[AlifRafikKhan]

The First German General To Be Executed After The War was General der Infanterie Anton Dostler. On March 22/23, 1944, during a small scale operation behind enemy lines in northern Italy, a group of 15 Italian-Americans of the US 2677th Headquarters Company were on a mission to blow up an important railway tunnel but were captured and taken prisoner before the mission (Operation 'Ginny') was completed. They were summarily shot on the instructions of 55 year old General Dostler who had simply passed on the order from higher authority (Hitler's Füfrerbefehl of October 18, 1942) which stated that all enemy encountered in Commando actions were to be executed. The plea of superior orders did not save Dostler from the firing squad. After a five day trial he was found guilty of a war crime and sentenced to death. On November 27, 1944, the Mediterranean Theatre Commander, Lieutenant General Matthew B. Ridgeway, confirmed the sentence. At 8 a.m. on the morning of December 1, 1944, General Dostler was tied to a stake on the firing range of the 803rd Military Police Battalion located near Aversa, Italy. A black hood was placed over his head, a white marker pinned to his chest and the order to fire was given to the 12 enlisted men of the US Army who composed the firing squad. (General Anton Dostler lies buried in the German War Cemetery at Pomezia some miles south of Rome).

Source :
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/1944.html
http://www.archives.gov/research/ww2/photos/

[AlifRafikKhan]

It has been generally accepted that Lieutenant Den Brotheridge of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry Regiment, British 6th Airborne Division, became the first British soldier to be killed in the invasion of Europe (D-Day, June 6, 1944) While he led his platoon of twenty-one men on the attack on the Orne Canal bridge at Benouville, he was hit in the neck by a bullet fired from the guns of the German sentries defending the Pegasus Bridge. Seconds before, a burst of fire from Brotheridge's Sten-gun killed one of the sentries, seventeen year old Gefreiter Helmut Römer, who became the first German to die in the defence of Hitler's 'Fortress Europe'. (It has since been discovered that when Lieutenant Brotheridges' glider landed near the bridge, 29 year old Lance Corporal Fred Greehalgh of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, drowned when exiting the glider. This would make him the first D-Day casualty. Just months before the 50th anniversary of the landings, the Pegasus Bridge was demolished and part of it was rebuilt and placed in the nearby Pegasus Bridge Museum where visitors can now walk walk over it...

Meanwhile, over the town of Sainte-Mare-Eglise, the first town liberated on D-Day, twenty eight year old Lt. Robert Mason Mathias of the 508th Parachute Regiment, US 82nd Airborne Division, was preparing to jump from his C-47 Dakota, when he was wounded by a shell burst. In spite of the wounds in his chest he commanded his men to 'Follow me' and hurled himself from the aircraft. Some time later, his men found his dead body, still strapped in his chute. Lt. Mathias was the first American soldier killed on D-day. Also at Sainte Mare-Eglise, Private John Steele found himself hanging from his parachute from the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After some hours he was rescued by one of the German defenders, a Rudolf May...


Source :
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/1944.html

[luft45]

Hi Everyone, does anyone know the oldest and youngest people awarded the Ritterkreuz des Kriegsverdienstkreuzes ? Any class of das Kreuz.

Many thanks
God bless from
Russ Brown

[AlifRafikKhan]

Corporal Bob Roberts was overseeing the surrender of dozens of enemy soldiers during the Battle of Normandy when the 7ft 6ins German loomed into his view.

Cpl Roberts, who stood two feet below him at 5ft 6ins, had the daunting job of frisking the German lance corporal for weapons before taking him prisoner.

Out of shot of the photo, Cpl Robert's comrades and even the captured German soldiers sniggered together at the sight of the little and large encounter.

It was a moment of lightness during the grim duty of war.

For just a few minutes before the picture was taken, Cpl Roberts faced a life-or-death duel with another German soldier who pulled out a pistol as he pretended to surrender.

Luckily, he raised his gun in the nick of time and shot the enemy soldier dead.

The photo has been unearthed by an amateur historian who sent it to Cpl Roberts, now aged 87 and living in Bournemouth, Dorset, in the hope he could identify the Allied serviceman.

But the great-grandfather went one better than that and instantly recognised himself in the photo.

Holding the picture, Cpl Roberts said: "I didn't take a lot of notice of this guy at the time because I was so focused on what the Germans were doing after what had happened to me.

"I just passed the prisoners on one after the other after searching them.

"But my mates who were watching the rest of the men saw this giant of a guy approach me and I was aware they and the Germans were having a good laugh.

"The Germans were saying that he was the tallest man in the German army, he was 7ft 6ins tall.

"My mates took some pictures of me with him with a camera they had taken from the Germans. Luckily he didn't give me any aggravation.

"I couldn't believe it when I received the photo after all these years. It took me back to a moment of light-heartedness so soon after I had been a blink of an eye from death."

Cpl Roberts, who was 21 at the time, was a member of the North Shore New Brunswick Regiment of the Canadian army and stormed Juno Beach on D-Day in June 1944.

After seeing action in the town of St Aubin - he helped take out a Nazi machine gun nest that was wreaking havoc down on the beach - his company moved north towards Calais.

The men took the cliffs above five pillboxes from which the Germans were bombing Dover 22 miles away with huge guns.

After a four day stand off the Germans waved a white flag from one of the bunkers.

Cpl Roberts, a retired painter and decorator, said: "They had been bombing Dover with shells as big as barrels and we had them surrounded; there was no way out for them.

"It wasn't wise for a whole platoon to go down to capture them as they could have been bluffing and shot us all up.

"So I was chosen to take a small section of seven men to take them prisoner.

"Dozens and dozens of them came out and I just shouted out 'does anyone speak English?'

"This officer came forward and I told him to tell his men to lay down their arms before coming to me so I could frisk them.

"I started to search him and suddenly he put his right hand in his pocket and pulled out a .38 pistol. I raised my gun and shot him in the eye and he went down.

"After that there wasn't any trouble from any of them, especially from this tall chap."

Cpl Roberts carried on fighting with his regiment through Belgium and Holland until February 1945 when he was badly injured in his right leg by a piece of shrapnel at Kappeln on the Holland/German border.

After the war he married wife Vera, who he still lives with today at the War Memorial Homes in Bournemouth.

They have four children, 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.


Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... cture.html

[history1]

Friedrich Rainer (July 28, 1903 in Sankt Veit an der Glan – July 19, 1947 (date unconfirmed) in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia – now in Slovenia) was a Nazi Gauleiter and an Austrian Landeshauptmann of Salzburg and Carinthia. Friedrich Rainer is thus far the only Austrian Landeshauptmann who has ever held this office in two Austrian Bundesländer

Wrong,
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Hofer
Gauleiter of Tyrol and Vorarlberg.

[AlifRafikKhan]

Thank you for the correction History1...

The "most prominent" soldier who is buried in the Military Cemetery at Vossenack is Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model (suicide on April 21, 1945 in the Ruhr pocket), the only german Field Marshal to be buried among common soldiers...

Source :
http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthr ... n-Soldiers
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... &start=255

[AlifRafikKhan]

Leutnant Ludwg Bauer received his KC in 29 April 1945, which made him the last KC holder of 9th Panzer-Division. It's amazing to see what he "got" during the war:

Combat Action: The wartime experiences of Ludwig Bauer are nothing less than extraordinary and it is a miracle that he is alive today. Given the fact, it is worth reviewing each time he was "abgeschossen" or "destroyed":

16 Nov 1941: While operating on the Eastern Front around Tula in a Panzer II received a direct hit from a Soviet medium KV2 tank. Driver and radioman killed.

28 Jun 1942: During the Tim-River crossing in a Panzer III (w/ short 7,5cm KwK L/24), received an anti-tank gun hit in the turret cupola and thereby killing Leutnant Sirse.

7 Jul 1942: In the tank battle of Woronesch while operating a Panzer III (w/ short 7,5cm KwK L/24) receievd a hit from a Soviet medium KV1 tank.

24 Aug 1942: Operating a Panzer III (w/ the long 7,5cm KwK39 L/60) near Shisdra, took a direct hit from a Soviet 17,2cm artillery round. Leutnant Rocholl, Grosshammer and the driver were severly wounded.

14 Dec 1942: With the 12.Panzerdivision in the area of Bjeloi/Rshew operating a Panzer III (KwK39 L/60) received a anti-tank gun hit on the left drivers and gunners vision slots. Enke killed, Schmidt, Ewald, and Betz wounded.

10 Jan 1944: In the vicinity of Kriwoi-Rog, with a Panzer IV (7,5cm KwK40 L/43), hit by an anti-tank gun on the right side. Loader and gunner severally wounded during the attack on Wysoki-Sheltije.

12 Jan 1944: In a Panzer IV (KwK40 L/43) during the fighting at Petrowa-Dolina near Sofiefka received a hit by a 12,2cm anti-tank gun that obliterated the gunners hip.

End of March 1945: Near Eiserfeld (Siegen) operating a Sturmgeschütz III hit by an anti-tank gun. Othmar Hahn killed, gunner wounded.

10 Apr 1945: In the German village of Erndtebrück while operating a "Panther" hit by a friendly Hetzer round (7,5cm PaK39 L/48) on left side.


Source: http://www.stengerhistorica.com/History ... /Bauer.htm

[Anil]

At 23.03 and 23.06 hours on 7 May 1945, U-2336 attacked the convoy EN-591 near May Island in the Firth of Forth and sank two ships, the Avondale Park and Sneland I.

The Sneland I (Master Johannes Lægland) was the commodore ship of the convoy and sank two minutes after being hit by a torpedo on the starboard side. The master and five crew members were lost, another crew member died while being brought ashore. 19 crew members and three gunners were picked up by HMS Valse (T 151) and HMS Leicester City (FY 223), later transferred to the Norwegian steam merchant Selvik and landed at Methil.

This was the last attack carried out by an U-boat in World War II.

Source: U-Boat.net

[AlifRafikKhan]

Korvettenkapitän Hoffmann, Heinrich
KC: 07.06.1944 as Chef 5.Torpedobootflottille
Oakleaves: 11.07.1944 as Korvettenkapitän, Chef 5.Torpedobootflottille

He was awarded his Ritterkreuz on June 7, 1944 as the first german thus awarded while fighting the invading Allies. He later won the Oakleaves (no. 524) on July 11, 1944 while commanding the same unit. Here are some information on Heinrich Hoffmann:

A description of Hoffmann's award winning action on June 6, 1944, D-Day...
0435 hrs : Gruppenkommando West orders reconnaissance patrols in the Baie de Seine with the 5th torpedo boats flottilla, the 15th patrol boats flottilla, the 38th minesweepers flottilla and, on each side of the cotentin pensinsula, the 5th and 9th speed boats flottilla.
Commander Heinrich HOFFMANN, commanding the 5th torpedo boats flottilla, leaves Le Havre with three boats: T28, Jaguar and Möwe.

0530 hrs : The three torpedo boats of Commander Heinrich HOFFMAN cross the artificial fog protecting the allied ships and emerges in front of the invasion fleet. HOFFMAN decides to attack immediatly, closing in despite the reaction of HMS Warspite and Ramillies.
The german flottila bore off and fired a salvo of 18 torpedos. The allied ships, taking evasive action, were able to avoid them except the Svenner, a norwegian destroyer, that was hit amidship and sunk instantly. The german flottila had already turned tail and disappeared in the fog.

Source : http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic ... &start=120