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Remembered Today:

Souveniers taken from the dead in time of war


Beau Geste

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Bob, let me try and clarify one or two points that I made. Referring to the National Alumni book, you state that: "I doubt that anyone else has actually held this book in their hand like I have."

Is there a difference between what appears in the book and what appears on the internet? Professor van der Essen's book does not purport to be a legal document but a judicial report: i.e. a work commissioned by a judicial enquiry into the incident.

Regarding you grandfather's writings, you state that: "This and the other stuff from him is letters written at the time, sometimes even the midst of a battle, not published propaganda material written by committees of professors and public officials and then published in multiple languages in different countries."

The inference here is that the professor was a mere tool of the propagandists and that he sacrificed his academic credibility to perpetrate a fabrication. If that isn't sneering at a fellow academic, I don't know what is.

As for the issue of German soldiers being drunk, their own officers admitted as much in written orders. Granted, the Order that I quoted did not concern the action at Louvain but I wouldn't doubt that alcohol played its part there.

I have never stated that I accept van der Essen's work as being "definitive" but I do not accept that it is a fabrication either.

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As requested, I will comment on this post. I will do so briefly, and then detail and document some of my points in further posts, if it seems necessary.

I repeat, and would ask you to answer the questions they pose:

Gottlieb von Jagow, German Minister of State, in his statement to the U.S. government confirmed that severe reprisals were carried out. I quote: "The barbarous acts of the Belgian people in almost all the territories occupied by the German troops have not only justified the most severe reprisals on the part of the German military authorities but have even compelled the latter to order them for safeguarding the troops."

Also, civilian shootings are confirmed by your grandfather's letters, I quote, "Incidentally I will happily admit that my grand-father's letters from Belgium mention shooting good numbers of Belgians seemingly caught firing on German troops....The family oral history cites him having to dive under his staff car for shelter from urban sniper fire."

Question 1: Jagow attempts to justify these "most severe reprisals" on the grounds of international law and self-defence - he, just like you do now, regarded the Belgians themselves as the law breakers! If a teutonic brain of high office thought them "most severe", when actually trying to justify these acts, then how bad must they have been in reality?

First of all, I have no idea what Jagow actually wrote, nor do I think you do. You posted a link to some web-site that I have never heard of, unattributed, except there is a copyright notice by a guy named Duffy, who I have never heard of. The source cited for the material given, including the supposed statement by Jagow, is that National Alumni book, which I have inspected at some length. It is a compilation, published in 1923, of a selection of Allied propaganda turned out during the war, including a great assortment of obvious fabrications. There is no date given for the presumed statement, no context, no mention of what language the statement was written in, nor any indication of who translated the passage.

The British historian Deborah Lake has recently stated that she has found a British document detailing the mechanics of how the UK engineered the publication of over a thousand propaganda books during the war. The books were commissioned and written to meet certain war objectives, and then surely thru the "old boys' network", reputable publishers were approached with the following arraingement; the British Government commissioned and wrote the book, and then paid the publisher for every single expense of the production and distribution of the book, the paper, printing, binding, distribution costs. In this manner, the publication of the book was totally without risk, and the profits to the publisher were guaranteed and were probably ten times as high as in the average publishing venture. Such a lucrative deal, combined with the fact that the book was being sponsored to further the war effort, easily induced the most reputable publishers to publish works that they must have known were full of fabrications, falsehoods, and propaganda.

However, you are not even going back to these 90+ year old fabricated propaganda materials. You are relying on what you found on the Internet, possibly or possibly not put up by a guy named Duffy, allegedly reproducing what supposedly was written in this National Alumni compellation of war-time propaganda, but giving no proper citation. Any freshman taking History 101 who attempted to use a chain of attribution this weak, using such questionable sources, would be urged to leave university and take up pizza-making or game-keeping. If you wish, I can present page after page of the absolutely absurd sort of material found in these sources, probably leading to a break-down of the GWF servers under the strain of a tidal wave of rubbish.

Assuming for the sake of argument that your quote is actually what Jagow wrote, he does admit that severe reprisals were inflicted on the Belgian population. I admit that this is true, although I have not made a study of this topic. I am sure that some of the reprisals were in reaction to violations of the rules of war by Belgian troops and civilians, and I am sure that some of the reprisals were mistaken, or even vindictive and totally unwarranted. It seems that about 6000 Belgian civilians died in 1914. The question seems to revolve about the proportion of these deaths that might be considered warranted by the harsh standards of the day, and what proportion were totally unjustified.

No military likes to be fired on by civilians, or by troops in civilian clothes. I get a great deal of my news from the British media. I watch 1/2 hour of BBC TV a day, listen to 1-2 hours of BBC news radio while working at my computer, I have read the Guardian every day for about 6-7 years, and occasionally other Brit print media. I have had a great deal of interest in the on-going train wreck that is Iraq, and in particular the sad events in and about Fallugha (sp?), where recently a cousin in the Marines was blown up by one of those fun IEDs, although happily he survived, and I saw him at Christmas. It was useful to use Brit sources to follow the fun there, as they had Arabic-speaking reporters inside the town, as the Marines destroyed the city. Boiled down to its essence, four US "civilian contractors"/mercenaries were sent into the town on a Fool's Errand about kitchen equipment, and were seemingly betrayed to the "insurgents" by the US-trained Civil Guard. They were shot dead, and then their bodies were burned and displayed.

At this time the US Marines were attempting to come to some sort of accomodation with the Sunnis who were then running the town, which was largely peaceful but very hostile to the occupying forces. However, it was decided at a high pay grade, probably political, not military, that a reprisal was in order, and the town was attacked, and a city of 250,000 was largely destroyed. The best estimate is that 1300 civilians were killed, besides perhaps 2000 insurgents. Today, four years later, the town is under strict military control; I just heard a few days ago that the checkpoints at the entrances to the city take five hours to go thru.

About 20 months ago the John Hopkins School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Baghdad University conducted a sampling survey study, and arrived at an extimate of 667,000 civilian dead in the first 3 1/2 years of the mess in Iraq. Recently a British sampling firm did a similar study, using an exceptionally large sample size of 1500 households (providing a margin of error of 2.4%), and concluded that as of a few months ago, 1,200,000 civilians have died. I have heard several BBC pieces on this study, including an extensive interview with the head of the firm, who detailed the methodology and problems. I have worked in this area of methodology and the work sounds sound. Both studies gave a breakdown of means of death, and, very roughly, it seems about split by insurgent actions and "Coalition Forces" activity.

Like to add that I have the complete training of a US Army officer and planned to have a career in the US Army until my eyes proved too weak for a commission in a combat branch; I wanted to go Armor or Corps of Engineers.

Question 2: The German Minister of State's letter of justification, and the content of your grandfather's letters, give us two pieces of clear evidence that the "rape of Belgium" was not TOTALLY invented by the allied propaganda machine. Or are you saying that your grandfather and the German Minister of State were wrong and only wrote these things as willing participants in the allied propaganda campaign?

I don't think that you actually ever bother reading what I write, but just fly off in all directions. Of course I know, and have repeatedly stated, that clearly the "rape of Belgium" was not TOTALLY invented by the allied propaganda machine, to use your words. It is crystal clear that the in vasion of Belgium was in violation of international treaty. It is also crystal clear that there were many occurances of Belgian civilians, and Belgian troops and reservists in civilian clothes, firing on uniformed German forces, which was a violation of international rules of war, punishable by death. (If you would bother to read French-language sources, you will find the Belgians and French boasting of that activity. Naturally they did not bother putting such boasts in the English-language propaganda material that you seem to base all of your study on.) It is also crystal clear that some proportion of the supposed 6000 civilian deaths were either totally unwarranted or conducted in a fashion that did not provide a fair legal process. It is also crystal clear that there was an enormous "Allied propaganda machine", to use your term, that ground out both tons of the most base, stupid atrocity fabrications, and reams of a very sophisticated mix of truth, fabrications, and spin aimed at the deception of very intelligent people.

At this point, 90+ years on, it is very difficult to sort all of this out. 99% of the primary sources are in French, Flemish/Dutch, and German. 99% of anything written in English on this topic is a product of the "Allied propaganda machine". I did a study of the material published on this topic, Belgium and WW I. There were 100s of books written in 1914-1918, with the production tapering off sharply in 1918, when of course the US was fully engaged in the war. After 1918 almost nothing was written on this topic for 90 years. Prof van der Essen seems to have been fully engaged in this effort during the conflict, with multiple books and pamphlets published in at least three languages in at least four countries. As he clearly was not in Belgium he clearly had no first-hand way of researching his material. His activities were totally proper, a very useful part of the Allied war effort. It was by no means an objective attempt to reach any sort of historical truth. Can someone, for the tenth time, properly cite his "work" which has been repeatedly referred to? Des, you say you have it. It has been insinuated that it is a post-war work and/or a judicial inquiry. Is this true? Why can't anyone give a proper citation for the principal source that your arguments seem to be based on?

Cheers - salesie.

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Des;

Can you properly cite van der Essen's "work"? You say that you have it on hand.

Bob

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Des;

Can you properly cite van der Essen's "work"? You say that you have it on hand.

Bob

The report I have was published by Berger-Levrault and was prepared for the Belgian Commission headed by one M. van Iseghem. Parts of the pamphlet are discoloured and dog-eared but it came out in 1917. Many documents of that era concerning German war crimes in France and Belgium were originally in French but were translated into English under the auspices of the Rev. J. Esslemont Adams, who was an Assistant Principal Chaplain with the British Expeditionary Force.

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Been looking at the service records for several local lads that died during the war. There's usually one page in the file that I think has relevance to the question of dead soldiers being "robbed" by their own side. Not sure which form number it is, but it relates to the list of the dead soldier's property being returned to the next of kin, with a receipt for the nok to sign.

I was (happily) surprised to see obvious items of value (including gold rings, watches, significant amounts of money etc) being returned as well as such sentimental items as photographs, letters and bibles etc. Obviously I have no idea if there were items that didn't made it to the lists that I've seen, but from what was included I suspect not much was robbed.

The service records I've refering to are mainly lads from the 4th Lincs (but a few from other Lincolnshire battalions), and for men typically killed in 1915 and 1916. I wonder if the fact that at this time the fact that they would still be serving with men from the same town would have any impact in the return of their property home (ie it would be easier to steal from a dead comrade knowing you would never meet his family, as opposed to knowing that his widow lived down the street).

Also noticed the same trend for a couple of lads buried way behind the lines after being wounded.

Obviously a very small sample of records, and as all of the men were killed during "quiet" times when I suspect the disposal of their property would have been according to regulations.

BTW-Sadly I don't see this thread's direction going in a particularly healthy direction...maybe just me. Personally my view (as uneducated as it is) would tend that agree that the German army committed some "war crimes" during both the invasion and occupation of Belguim. Did the Allies use and expand upon this for propaganda purposes, of course they did. But does the propaganda relieve the occupying power of any responsibility for their actions? There is a quote in Martin Middlebrook's (awful) book Capt Staniland's Journey what I typically wouldn't subscribe to, but feel its apt here "Is it a trait peculiar to the Germans to initiate some horror and then object when someone retaliates?"

What saddens me is the flippant, arrogant responses by a certain member of the forum. Not keeping in with what I expect from this forum, nor what I suspect others expect either.

Jim

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What saddens me is the flippant, arrogant responses by a certain member of the forum. Not keeping in with what I expect from this forum, nor what I suspect others expect either.

Jim

Hello Jim,

Thank you so much for your posting. Over the past week or so this Forum has been rocked by "controversy" with one long serving member expelled and quite a number of pals getting into arguments that I'm sure they would have preferred to avoid.

In a situation like this, as the thread's originator, I see it as my job to read between the lines as it were and try to comprehend what it is that you find offensive. Believe me Jim I do understand and empathise with the point you are making but I believe that this particular thread, built as it is on the back of other threads involving the same individuals, could well be reaching an important point in its evolution. I'm talking here about academic accuracy and prejudice. We wont know how things work out unless we stand back and watch. I can assure you though that I will do my best to ensure that the "responses" you refer to do NOT get out of hand.

Kind regards,

Harry.

PS You might want to delete one of the two postings that have appeared on this thread.

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Well, Bob, once again you "talk" a lot but say very little. But, just to show you that I do read what you write very carefully, I quote from your last post (plucked from your smokescreen consisting of other conflicts and rants about allied propaganda):

"I don't think that you actually ever bother reading what I write, but just fly off in all directions. Of course I know, and have repeatedly stated, that clearly the "rape of Belgium" was not TOTALLY invented by the allied propaganda machine, to use your words. It is crystal clear that the in vasion of Belgium was in violation of international treaty. It is also crystal clear that there were many occurances of Belgian civilians, and Belgian troops and reservists in civilian clothes, firing on uniformed German forces, which was a violation of international rules of war, punishable by death. (If you would bother to read French-language sources, you will find the Belgians and French boasting of that activity. Naturally they did not bother putting such boasts in the English-language propaganda material that you seem to base all of your study on.) It is also crystal clear that some proportion of the supposed 6000 civilian deaths were either totally unwarranted or conducted in a fashion that did not provide a fair legal process. It is also crystal clear that there was an enormous "Allied propaganda machine", to use your term, that ground out both tons of the most base, stupid atrocity fabrications, and reams of a very sophisticated mix of truth, fabrications, and spin aimed at the deception of very intelligent people."

I should like to focus on the bold sections of this direct quote. You tell us, "Of course I know, and have repeatedly stated, that clearly the "rape of Belgium" was not TOTALLY invented by the allied propaganda machine". If this is clear to you, Bob, why do you repeatedly ask for references to sources, surely in order to make this unambiguous statement you must have sources of your own that prove this point - perhaps you'd like to share them with us?

Then you state, "It is crystal clear that the in vasion of Belgium was in violation of international treaty. It is also crystal clear that there were many occurances of Belgian civilians, and Belgian troops and reservists in civilian clothes, firing on uniformed German forces, which was a violation of international rules of war, punishable by death." This would seem to concur with Von Jagow's attempt to justify "most severe reprisals" on the grounds of Belgian violation of international law. Do you, Bob, believe the Belgians themselves were the criminals and simply got what they deserved?

You then tell us that, "It is also crystal clear that some proportion of the supposed 6000 civilian deaths were either totally unwarranted or conducted in a fashion that did not provide a fair legal process." You unambiguously accept that some civilians deaths were unwarranted, your own sources please?

Then last but not least, you state that, "It is also crystal clear that there was an enormous "Allied propaganda machine", to use your term, that ground out both tons of the most base, stupid atrocity fabrications, and reams of a very sophisticated mix of truth, fabrications, and spin aimed at the deception of very intelligent people." Do you believe, Bob, that because the allies conducted a propaganda effort then all German atrocities, even the ones you accept as being crystal clear in fact and not invented by allied propaganda, should be excused?

Answers please, Bob. After reading your CV (resume) in a previous post, I should imagine, from the point of view of academic prestige, you wouldn't want to leave such crystal-clear contradictory points unexplained?

Cheers - salesie.

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The report I have was published by Berger-Levrault and was prepared for the Belgian Commission headed by one M. van Iseghem. Parts of the pamphlet are discoloured and dog-eared but it came out in 1917. Many documents of that era concerning German war crimes in France and Belgium were originally in French but were translated into English under the auspices of the Rev. J. Esslemont Adams, who was an Assistant Principal Chaplain with the British Expeditionary Force.

Thanks for the citation. One of the 185 "van der Essen" items for sale on abebooks was a xeroxed copy of that pamphlet and possibly a few others, for sale at something like $55, a lot for, I think, 24 xeroxed pages.

Berger-Levrault was a major publisher of French military materials. Of the roughly 160 French regimental histories that I have read in the last six months, about 40 were published by them, probably many more than any other one publisher.

Whether its contents are true or not, this pamphlet is openly and entirely a product of collaboration between the Belgian government in exile, the French military, and the BEF, and did not attempt to use the British mechanism I previously described to issue commissioned propaganda materials thru publication by reputable civilian publishing houses, utilizing the government subsidies to the publishers. Although van der Essen was an academic in peacetime, he spent the war writing a large output of propaganda materials in at least three languages and published in at least four countries. I normally do neither read nor purchase such materials, issued by any side in the conflict. However, if I were seriously studying the events in Belgium, I would read it, but utilize it with extreme caution, and for limited purposes. It is abserd to attempt to wrap van der Essen's war-time output in the cloak of academic respectability and objectiveness; he was working very hard grinding out propaganda materials to help defeat the invaders of his homeland; any attempt at evenhanded objectivity would have been rediculous. I have seen US propaganda materials, substantial books, published within a month of the entry of the US into the war by eminent Harvard professors, obviously written ahead of time and put on the shelf for use when the war was formally entered.

Bob Lembke

PS: Jim Davies has deplored the direction of this thread. As to my part in it, if he means the "rape of Belgium" direction, I must point out that this thread, which has been annointed the status of a "Classic", is Harry's baby, so to speak, and that he has repeatedly asked me in posts (and even in a PM) to respond to the posts of others on this specific topic, which I have done with very mixed feelings.

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Bob Lembke

PS: Jim Davies has deplored the direction of this thread. As to my part in it, if he means the "rape of Belgium" direction, I must point out that this thread, which has been annointed the status of a "Classic", is Harry's baby, so to speak, and that he has repeatedly asked me in posts (and even in a PM) to respond to the posts of others on this specific topic, which I have done with very mixed feelings.

What you say is true Bob. I have asked you to respond but only because you are The Forum's best known authority on German involvement in The Great War. Points were being put forward that I thought you would want to comment on.

It's obvious though that it's getting to the point where nothing is being achieved. Terry has come in and told us to cool it down. We are at more than 400 postings on the subject and it would be a pity if it was closed down before it ran it's full course.

OK guys back off. Take a deep breath and let the thread find a new course from now on.

Harry

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I for one am tired of the "rape of Belgium" and a series of circular Sophistic arguments. I finally do know where some of this stuff has come from, and may get my hands on the van der Essen pamphlet, for my private amusement. I may see if I can get it in French as well, and see how creative the translation is. But I do not plan to post on the topic. If some one has more stomach for the topic about a year ago there was a discussion, I believe on the GWF, about the supposed incenderary lozenges that the Germans supposedly were burning all the Belgian houses down with. I think the discussion rather decisively exploded that staple of the atrocity stories.

I have a question on the original topic, soldier-on-soldier crime, which I think has been a much wider discussion than simply the robbing the dead theme. My father's letters indicate that he felt that the honesty of many soldiers, or perhaps of the newer soldiers, decreased as the war went on. Of course the average "quality" of the German soldier was decreasing. Additionally, of course, the increasing effects of the blockade on the soldiers and their families alike would both break down morale and increase desperation as the war went on. He wrote how someone went into his locker and took a sum of money, which he felt would not have happened earlier in the war. As he was an active and successful dealer in captured luxuries, such as tins of coffee, and also dealed in things like dried mushrooms (In hospital he had a drying oven under his bed, and roamed the woods and picked wild mushrooms and took them to the hospital for drying and sale), and he frequently received money from his father in letters, the amounts being noted in the letters, he seemed to tend to have a lot of money on hand. But he was shocked when some went missing.

Of course, while the German supply/food situation got worse, the Allies generally at least got better organized. and also possibly better supplied. Anyone have a read on the relative level of morals as the war went on? Of course not only the changing supply situation could have affected behavior. Possibly, as the war went on some men might have suffered from a coarsening of their sensibilities. Or possibly (and improbably), as the war went on men rose to new heights of saintliness.

Any ideas here?

Bob Lembke

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It's obvious though that it's getting to the point where nothing is being achieved. Terry has come in and told us to cool it down. We are at more than 400 postings on the subject and it would be a pity if it was closed down before it ran it's full course.

OK guys back off. Take a deep breath and let the thread find a new course from now on.

Harry

I wrote my post without seeing your comment. I am more than happy to discuss happier topics, like robbing the dead, and your buddies.

Bob

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I wrote my post without seeing your comment. I am more than happy to discuss happier topics, like robbing the dead, and your buddies.

Bob

Thanks Bob for this and the preceding posting. We spent a lot of time discussing taking souveniers from the dead and at the time it seemed to be a good idea to focus on the more heinous act of actually killing someone to get at their possessions. It would appear though that there isn't a great deal of evidence of this if we discount the area that has recently been the subject of discussion.

Perhaps the thread has run its course and it is time to call it a day. I'd appreciate the opinion of those who have contributed to it so well.

Harry

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I say leave the thread open. If there are more disagreements, have them without being disagreeable.

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A Classic Thread Indeed Harry,and a Lot of Ground has been covered albeit with some interesting and Informative Diversions away from the main Topic itself !.As to the Original Question that you first Posed,i am sure that it did go on..unproven maybe,but Human Nature being what it is Nothing would surprise Me.Back to the Topic in Hand,maybe close the Thread down now,as i Fear that we will simply be revisiting Old Ground and Simply going around in Circles...So Time to Wrap it up.My Opinion Only i hasten to Add.Regards to All R.

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A Classic Thread Indeed Harry,and a Lot of Ground has been covered albeit with some interesting and Informative Diversions away from the main Topic itself !.As to the Original Question that you first Posed,i am sure that it did go on..unproven maybe,but Human Nature being what it is Nothing would surprise Me.Back to the Topic in Hand,maybe close the Thread down now,as i Fear that we will simply be revisiting Old Ground and Simply going around in Circles...So Time to Wrap it up.My Opinion Only i hasten to Add.Regards to All R.

Thank you Russ, I'll leave it for a day and see what others think. If I do decide to end it, how do I do that?

Harry

I say leave the thread open. If there are more disagreements, have them without being disagreeable.

A fair comment Pete. Perhaps it would be best to leave it for 24 hours to see what others think.

Harry

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Harry?

You as topic starter have a 'close topic' button.

Let it go on a bit tho, as its a good read & some of the best stuff can come from 'slightly off topic' responses ;) .

Dave.

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I dropped off this one when it got a bit bogged down in the same old same old. I reread it when it moved. A lot of good stuff here and it would be a pity if it was closed. There is a book which covers the German Army and it's relations with civilians in occupied countries and colonies from 1870 through 1918. " Absolute Destruction", I. V. Hull. Cornell University Press. 2005. The book won a couple of prizes. There seems to be no doubt that contraventions of Geneva Convention took place in Belgium. Professor Hull's thesis is that a contempt for civilians and an expectation that they would act as franc-tireurs was inculcated into German troops from the time of the Franco-Prussian war. The German Army's actions in South West Africa make horrific reading. Especially when one thinks of the crocodile tears shed by Kaiser Wilhelm II during the South African Wars. It is significant that the government during the war and into the thirties never denied the accusations levelled against them but excused them as extreme measures forced on them by exigencies of war.

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Let's leave the thread open and let it fade away into a kind of honorable oblivion. It'll go farther and farther into the background as time goes on. About every three months or so someone will add a comment and it will be bumped up to the top. Who knows, somebody may add something new.

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Another extract from Michael Occleshaw's book, Armour Against Fate, which again tells us why rifling of the dead was so important, but also mentions that souvenir hunting was frowned upon by intelligence officers.

"Besides these official papers, a whole mass of revealing private papers were taken from prisoners or picked up from the bodies of dead Germans by parties specially detailed for this unsavoury and unpopular task. The private papers of enemy soldiers corroborate much of the information that was found in official papers, with the added advantage that they revealed the state of morale. According to Elliot, German soldiers had an almost universal habit of keeping personal diaries filled with details of places they had visited, of friends in other regiments, of where, when and how long they had stayed in rest billets. Letters often gave valuable information about their units. NCOs often carried battalion orders and, on at least one occasion, a man carried an order stating that his regiment was to be relieved by another at a stated time and by a specific route. Collecting and checking these papers was obviously vitally important and this accounts for the disapproval of the actions of souvenir-hunters.

Equally important and just as frequently found was the paybook carried by each German soldier. These slim booklets, about the size and thickness of a small notebook or engagement diary, contained all the details of its owner's military service, including two details of paramount importance in a war of attrition. One was the conscription class to which the man belonged. Every German male was a possible candidate for conscription when he reached his twentieth birthday and young men reaching that age in any particular year constituted the conscription class of that year; thus all men reaching the age of twenty in the fateful year of 1914 would be the class of 1914. By grading prisoners and casualties according to their annual class, Allied Intelligence was given a powerful insight into the state of German units, their fighting condition and the scale of their losses. This ran hand-in-hand with the study of the German Order of Battle, for the call up of a new class would indicate either an increase in the size of the German Army or that more men were needed to maintain that army at its existing strength, thus reflecting the losses it had suffered.

The second important detail was the company roll number each young was given when he joined his unit. If he was killed, seriously wounded, taken prisoner or otherwise released from the service, his replacement would be allotted the succeeding number in the company list, a system which, with typical Prussian thoroughness, would reveal the losses suffered by the company. Thus it followed that if paybooks from all the companies in a battalion, regiment or division could he taken, then the losses of that unit could be established with reasonable precision, as would be the wastage of German manpower through the study of the conscription classes. When large numbers of paybooks fell into British hands after a major action, either by being taken from prisoners or rifled from the pockets of the dead and wounded, it was possible to calculate the composition of German units by classes, to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure for overall German casualties, to observe the fluctuations in German manpower and to project the strength of the German Army's future prowess. Perhaps most importantly of all, these calculations would be derived from German sources."

Cheers - salesie.

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Who knows, somebody may add something new.

Well,there ya go...

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Another extract from Michael Occleshaw's book, Armour Against Fate, which again tells us why rifling of the dead was so important, but also mentions that souvenir hunting was frowned upon by intelligence officers.

[

Equally important and just as frequently found was the paybook carried by each German soldier. These slim booklets, about the size and thickness of a small notebook or engagement diary, contained all the details of its owner's military service, including two details of paramount importance in a war of attrition. One was the conscription class to which the man belonged. Every German male was a possible candidate for conscription when he reached his twentieth birthday and young men reaching that age in any particular year constituted the conscription class of that year; thus all men reaching the age of twenty in the fateful year of 1914 would be the class of 1914. By grading prisoners and casualties according to their annual class, Allied Intelligence was given a powerful insight into the state of German units, their fighting condition and the scale of their losses. This ran hand-in-hand with the study of the German Order of Battle, for the call up of a new class would indicate either an increase in the size of the German Army or that more men were needed to maintain that army at its existing strength, thus reflecting the losses it had suffered.

There were two slim booklets associated with each German soldier. The soldier actually carried his Soldbuch, or "paybook" (Sold = "pay" in English, I believe that the word comes from the Latin word for salt, and the root is the same as the root for the word "soldier"). This book did not "contain all of the details of its owner's military service", but a very small sub-set of this information. However, it still did give useful information. The excellent British intelligence publication, German Army Handbook April 1918, as reprinted in 1977, discusses this book, and gives its contents, and states that it is useful for identifing a soldier. The Soldbuch certainly did contain the year class of the soldier, and of course that could be deducted from the soldier's birth-date, but there were many ways and ages at which you could enter the four German Armies, and this complexity only increased when the war started. I am not sure how much information this gave, as the Soldbuch did not seem to indicate the route that the soldier took to enter the army. The one clear exception would be if the documents indicated that numbers of 19 year olds were entering the army, and then, later, if it indicated that 18 year olds were being inducted. The type of call-up of an entire year's class was the mode of call-up that occurred in peace-time, in France, as well as in Germany, but that changed when the war started.

The really detailed booklet was called the Militaer=Pass, and the soldier did not possess it, and they were kept back from the front so they could not be captured. (I think that they were periodically brought forward at safe times so that the Feldwebel, or "company sergeant major", could periodically update the document, and prepare necessary entries, and present them to the company CO for his signature.) For this reason the entries, on average, lag the event being documented by several months, or sometimes longer. I think that the soldier was only given this document when he left the service, and I do not know if they ever saw it before that date. This document would have proved a treasure trove to enemy intelligence. It has ten times the info as found in the pay book, which gave some biographical information, but mainly contained the pay records of the soldier, and a record of his innoculations.

The second important detail was the company roll number each young was given when he joined his unit. If he was killed, seriously wounded, taken prisoner or otherwise released from the service, his replacement would be allotted the succeeding number in the company list, a system which, with typical Prussian thoroughness, would reveal the losses suffered by the company. Thus it followed that if paybooks from all the companies in a battalion, regiment or division could he taken, then the losses of that unit could be established with reasonable precision, as would be the wastage of German manpower through the study of the conscription classes. When large numbers of paybooks fell into British hands after a major action, either by being taken from prisoners or rifled from the pockets of the dead and wounded, it was possible to calculate the composition of German units by classes, to arrive at a reasonably accurate figure for overall German casualties, to observe the fluctuations in German manpower and to project the strength of the German Army's future prowess. Perhaps most importantly of all, these calculations would be derived from German sources."

I don't know where the cited author got this. I have collected and studied Militaer=Paesse and Soldbuecher for years, and have about 40 of the former, and perhaps also five of the latter, which are a lot less interesting. I also translate them for dealers, once translating 14 in return for my choice of three of them. I also have some examples of a third booklet, the Scheiss=Buch (that spelling might be off), the "shooting book", a record of marksmanship scores for infantrymen. There was no company roll number. In the Prussian Army, or in units suborbinated to it, in peace-time there was a Truppenstammrolle number. (Stammrolle means "register".) When the war broke out the number was re-named the Kriegsstammrolle number, with the Truppen crossed out and the word Kriegs written in.). The British intelligence book, on page 154, calls this the man's "regimental number". I just poked thru a pile of Paesse, and only one number was in the hundreds, all the rest were in the thousands, one being # 6490. This clearly was a regimental number, not a company number. This number was, for some reason, changed every year. I have never been able to make sense of this system, but I have never really made much of an effort.

I have before me a Militaer=Pass and a Soldbuch from a soldier of the Saxon Army, a Private Wilhelm Lehmann, first of IR 177, then IR 103. The above details are a bit different from Prussian documents, the number is called the Stammrolle number, but the system seems the same.

However, the author's basic point is well-taken. Careful study of these documents could provide valuable information. However, German soldiers did not carry a document detailing their military career. This document existed, but they could not possess it until they left active duty, or possibly only at the end of their reserve duty. The document that they did carry was mostly a record of their pay receipts and their innoculations, plus some biographical information, such as place of birth and parents' names.

I have my father's Militaer=Pass, with a wealth of information, including his more serious wounds and his hospitalizations.

Cheers - salesie.

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On the subject of intelligence gathering - and this is related - were Tommies ordered to empty their pockets of personal possessions before they went into action? Using WWII as an example, RAF crews were not permitted to take personal effects into the air because they might be of value to the enemy.

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BTW-Sadly I don't see this thread's direction going in a particularly healthy direction...maybe just me.

What saddens me is the flippant, arrogant responses by a certain member of the forum. Not keeping in with what I expect from this forum, nor what I suspect others expect either.

Jim

Hello Jim,

Why don't you PM me with a little more detail. In confidence of course.

Best wishes,

Harry

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