BerlinerLuebecker
Senior Member
Merry Christmas, everyone! I thought I'd share some pictures of my first collection, the one that means the most to me and is the reason I ever got into collecting in the first place. Below you'll find pictures of Oberleutnant Georg Einhellinger of the Aufklaerungs-Abteilung 97 of the 97. Gebirgsjaeger Division "Spielhahnjaeger".
This is my godmother's late husband, a very friendly and gracious man we knew as "Uncle George", who had been close family friends with my grandparents for fifty years. He never talked about his war experience and it took a question from my grandfather about a scar George showed at a beach outing for him to even mention he had been in the war (the scar ran along his knee cap and was from a grenade splinter taken in 1943, if my picture investigation is correct). You'll note from the picture that he held the following awards: Infantry Assault Badge in Silver, Gold wound badge, Iron Cross 2nd class, Iron Cross 1st class, the Close Combat Clasp in Gold (one of less than 500 awarded to members of the Heer), the German Cross in Gold, a medal I have not yet identified (and is not in my possession) and, finally, the Knight's Cross. Unfortunately, the IAB, the unidentified medal, the CCC, and his original Knight's Cross are lost to me - they were not among his things and his wife is unsure what happened to them. The Knight's Cross below is the 1957 version he purchased after the war to wear at reunions in Bad Toelz, Bavaria. Curiously enough, he is not on any official Knight's Cross holders list. In the picture he is already wearing his CCC in Gold, which was awarded in January, 1945, and I have a letter from General Rabe von Pappenheim which references George not yet having been awarded the "long-deserved" Knight's Cross. That would mean he received the award sometime between March and May 1945.
The Edelweiss hat badge was not his - by pure coincidence, I found this original badge in a box of old family knick-knacks that hadn't been touched in decades.
This is my godmother's late husband, a very friendly and gracious man we knew as "Uncle George", who had been close family friends with my grandparents for fifty years. He never talked about his war experience and it took a question from my grandfather about a scar George showed at a beach outing for him to even mention he had been in the war (the scar ran along his knee cap and was from a grenade splinter taken in 1943, if my picture investigation is correct). You'll note from the picture that he held the following awards: Infantry Assault Badge in Silver, Gold wound badge, Iron Cross 2nd class, Iron Cross 1st class, the Close Combat Clasp in Gold (one of less than 500 awarded to members of the Heer), the German Cross in Gold, a medal I have not yet identified (and is not in my possession) and, finally, the Knight's Cross. Unfortunately, the IAB, the unidentified medal, the CCC, and his original Knight's Cross are lost to me - they were not among his things and his wife is unsure what happened to them. The Knight's Cross below is the 1957 version he purchased after the war to wear at reunions in Bad Toelz, Bavaria. Curiously enough, he is not on any official Knight's Cross holders list. In the picture he is already wearing his CCC in Gold, which was awarded in January, 1945, and I have a letter from General Rabe von Pappenheim which references George not yet having been awarded the "long-deserved" Knight's Cross. That would mean he received the award sometime between March and May 1945.
The Edelweiss hat badge was not his - by pure coincidence, I found this original badge in a box of old family knick-knacks that hadn't been touched in decades.
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