Recently I bought this rather common three medal/badge award document grouping of an infantry soldier, mainly because of the 1940 EKII, I like it when a medal can be matched with a certain battle, in this case the EKII was awarded on June 25 1940 by the CO of the 554ID.
The 554ID was a low quality division, most of the men came from Landesschützen units and its artillery regiment was equipped with Polish “Beute” guns; this division saw very little action, it had a limited role in crossing the Rhine on June 15 1940.
So far nothing really special, just an EKII that is awarded to a “Schutze” for attacking the Maginot-line; but that changed when I received the documents and I did some extra research on the two Eastern front documents.
After the fall of France the 554ID is dissolved and Walter Liebetrau ends up with the sixth company of IR577 of the 305ID; in 1942 his unit is a part of the famous Sixth Army that advances towards Stalingrad.
On July 13 1942 he is WIA in Kallatsch on the Don river front and for this wound he gets a wounded badge in black by a replacement unit which is based in Heilbronn; again nothing really special, a rather detailed WBiB document but that is it.
Now we come to the piece which makes this set an above average award document set.
It seems that Walter Liebetrau makes it back to his old unit after he recovered from his injury of July 13 1942 because he is awarded an ISA on October 31 1942, it is in October 1942 that IR577 is involved in the fierce fighting for control over the Red October factory complex in Stalingrad.
During the attack on October 16 1942 the men of II/IR577 were photographed by the German war correspondent Kurt Heine, he made some of the most iconic pictures of the battle for Stalingrad, photos we all know very well, one of the men photographed that day was Friedrich Winkler, the company commander of Walter Liebetrau.
I don’t know what happened to Walter L, there two Walter Liebetrau’s on the wargraves website but both aren’t a match, was he wounded again and evacuated out of the city or did he survive the POW camp, like I said I don’t know; but we have an award document for the ISA that has been awarded after one of the most famous infantry assaults of WW2.
The 554ID was a low quality division, most of the men came from Landesschützen units and its artillery regiment was equipped with Polish “Beute” guns; this division saw very little action, it had a limited role in crossing the Rhine on June 15 1940.
So far nothing really special, just an EKII that is awarded to a “Schutze” for attacking the Maginot-line; but that changed when I received the documents and I did some extra research on the two Eastern front documents.
After the fall of France the 554ID is dissolved and Walter Liebetrau ends up with the sixth company of IR577 of the 305ID; in 1942 his unit is a part of the famous Sixth Army that advances towards Stalingrad.
On July 13 1942 he is WIA in Kallatsch on the Don river front and for this wound he gets a wounded badge in black by a replacement unit which is based in Heilbronn; again nothing really special, a rather detailed WBiB document but that is it.
Now we come to the piece which makes this set an above average award document set.
It seems that Walter Liebetrau makes it back to his old unit after he recovered from his injury of July 13 1942 because he is awarded an ISA on October 31 1942, it is in October 1942 that IR577 is involved in the fierce fighting for control over the Red October factory complex in Stalingrad.
During the attack on October 16 1942 the men of II/IR577 were photographed by the German war correspondent Kurt Heine, he made some of the most iconic pictures of the battle for Stalingrad, photos we all know very well, one of the men photographed that day was Friedrich Winkler, the company commander of Walter Liebetrau.
I don’t know what happened to Walter L, there two Walter Liebetrau’s on the wargraves website but both aren’t a match, was he wounded again and evacuated out of the city or did he survive the POW camp, like I said I don’t know; but we have an award document for the ISA that has been awarded after one of the most famous infantry assaults of WW2.
