Hindenburg Cross - its seems to be black

[James Blonde]

Hallo corisande,

yes you can clearly see the bayonets on the medal pictured,

how he came by this is anybody guess in my opinion no way officially

unless he served under arms in combat with a W.W. Austro-Hungarian Unit

(and if he did he would have been entitled to apply for the 1934 period Austrian Commemorative Medal of WW1.)

The same goes for the German Legion of Honour self awarded in my opinion unless he went to Germany and joined the organisation as there was no automatic awarding.

Connaught Stranger.

[corisande]

Thanks, I have his life all through WW1, and he was never near the front.

It was a bit of luck getting his British Army record, and he certainly over-egged his achieved rank there. Von Papen, German Military Attache in New York reported to Berlin that Monteith had been a Sgt Major in RHA, while his records shows just a Bombardier.

I suppose nobody in Ireland would have had the faintest idea what these medals were, so nobody ever questioned them.

I am in Dublin next week, and RTE are doing an interview with me about Michael Keogh, so I need to get my facts straight. In fact the medals are but a minor part of his memoirs - colourful as I say!

[James Blonde]

There is no doubt medals could be acquired by veterans and worn illegally,

(still happens today in many countries.)

In Germany, unless you were still a serving soldier or later a serving Party member in some official capacity between say 1934 - 1945, then you probably would get away with it, there was a lot of leeway granted the old WW1 veterans, but even the Nazi's were a stickler for the regulations and they did control the wearing of unofficial veteran awards, which were all basically banned from uniforms of serving military and party members.

Even "Fat Herman" Goering fell foul of these laws and had to rearrange his medal bars to comply, however, pictures do exist of high rankers flouting the rules either through ignorance or a genuine military tailors mistake.

However Keogh is caught out by his Ürkunde / award Brevet having survived. (A close look at that with regards the issuing Polizeprasident will give an idea where his application was processed.

Connaught Stranger.

[James Blonde]

If I recall correctly as a Bombardier he would have been a "Kanonier" in German parlance.

He probably promoted himself for self importance.

Connaught Stranger