Third Party Press

tank destruction badge grouping

Peter U

Moderator
Staff member
Hello,

It has always been a collectorsdream of me to find a Panzervernichtungsabzeichen citation with a local connection and this week I found one.

This is the awarddocument set of Obergefreiter Fritz Krämer:
- Verwundentenabzeichen Schwarz 12/05/1943
- EKII 19/1/1944
- Fallschirmschutzenabzeichen in Stoff 20/07/1944
- Verwundentenabzeichen in Silber 11/11/1944 (signed by KC owner Hauptmann Mager)
- Panzervernichtungsabzeichen 13/11/1944
- Infanterie Sturmabzeichen in Silber 25/11/1944
- Verwundentenabzeichen in Gold 11/01/1945


Fritz was a corporal in the 14th company of Luftwaffe Feld division, an airforce infantry division, in 1943/44 this unit was fighting on the Easternfront in the Nowgorod sector.
He is wounded for the firsttime on April 5 1943, for this wound he gets a wounded badge in black.
In january '44 he gets an EKII, a month later, February 2 '44 he is wounded for a thirdth time.
After he has recovered from his wounds he volunteers for the paratroopers, in May 1944 he attends a paratrooper course in the jumpschool of Wittstock.
He gets assigned to the famous 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment that is commanded by von der Heydte, a unit that destinguished itself in Normandy.
In September his unit is on the frontline again, this time as the backbone unit of the newly created 1st Fallschirmarmee in Belgium & Holland.
This is some more detailed information from a FJR6 reenactors website, on the battles he fought in the fall of 1944: http://www.fjr6.co.uk/holland.html
In October 1944 he fights in the battle of Woensdrecht, his batallion defends the left flanc. On October 21 1944 his unit halts an allied armoured attack in Nieuwmoer (Belgium).
He is wounded for the fifth time on October 29 1944, the last day of the battle of Woensdrecht, in Wouw (Holland).
Another thread about it:
http://www.k98kforum.com/showthread.php?523-The-battle-for-Woensdrecht-1944-Then-amp-now.
For this campagne he is awarded an infantry assult badge in silver; this is non standard, normally paratroopers get an groundcombat badge.
He is also awarded with a tank destruction badge, the document in the set is an extract out of the batallion daily order. Fritz Krämer is mentioned in this daily order as having been a Sicherer, the soldier that gave close fire support, in an action that destroyed an allied tank; although he didn't destroy the tank itself his batallion commander finds it enough to award him a Panzervernichtungsabzeichen.
Alas the date of the tank destruction action isn't given; nevertheless this is a rare document, examples for the Westernfront are very difficult to find.

cheers,
Peter
 

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Peter, that's an outstanding set of docs and particularly so since this guy was fighting in your neighborhood! Pic stickied.
 
It may be obvious (not to me), did he survive the war? If so he missed many chances to be killed. He stayed in the thick of it!!


Nice stuff!!!!!!!
 
It may be obvious (not to me), did he survive the war? If so he missed many chances to be killed. He stayed in the thick of it!!


Nice stuff!!!!!!!

Hello History,

It isn't obvious at all; Fritz Krämer is a very common name in Germany and without more information such as his birthday it is impossible to search the list with names of KIA soldiers on the German wargraves website.
What we know from the documents is that he was wounded for the fifthtime on October 29 1944, on January 11 1945 he is still in a hospital. So he is in hospital for more then seven weeks, so we can asume that his wound was rather a serious one.
Personally I think that he wasn't fit anymore for frontline service.
During his time with FJR6 he certainly was in thick of it on the Westernfront!

Cheers,
Peter
 

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