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Madrid, Spain 7th January 2008 "Nothing brings to life another era like the chance to handle, wear, or wield the physical objects of the period, deplore though we may the uses to which they were once put... Besides reenactors, countless collectors and museum-goers have been inspired by beholding bullet-riddled battle flags, rusted canteens, or jagged pieces of shot and shell... Experience suggests that there may be a fault line between those personalities susceptible to the lure of relics and those inclined to pore over written records. The person who will spend hours sifting debris under a scorching sun, or travel thousands of miles to haggle over guns and swords at a hobby show, seems possessed of a fundamentally different temperament than someone willing to sit patiently in the hushed reading room of an archives or library, coaxing facts from faded documents. This distinction notwithstanding, some few multitalented souls have successfully bridged both worlds, and the result of their efforts is well worth heeding. From "War in an Age of Wonders: Civil War Arms and Equipment" |
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Michael Musick summarizes rather well the raison d´etre of the present website. I share the intense, nearly compulsive acquisitive drive of militaria collectors, as well as the need to systematize, to put things into a framework for rigorous historical and material culture study. Further, my work involves bringing archival material to bear on the artifacts I collect, and have done so with success as these pages show. Both the pragmatic and the more academic elements mentioned are needed if we are to develop something more than a haphazard collection of beautiful artifacts, something organized and open to the review and scrutiny of students of the larger fields of material culture, contemporary military archaeology, and XX Century German history, among others. For the last two and a half years, I have been collecting German officer daggers from the Wehrmacht period that talk. "Named" daggers, daggers that were once engraved, with varying degrees of skill, by or for their original owners, are objects of XX century military material culture, as well as windows into the lives and careers of their original bearers. From presentation pieces (the celebration of a promotion, a return to home base after a successful campaign, fatherly love to a son or comeradery among men of arms), to simple name engravings meant to identify one´s dagger and avoid its loss, these artifacts provide us an unusual link to their original owner and historical context. I have followed this link as far as I could in each instance, and this journey has taken me through period and contemporary sources on dagger regulations and manufacture, published and unpublished officer and unit histories, to the National Archives of the United States, to, especially, Germany´s Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv Freiburg. Last of all, I have been privileged to end my research in some instances, with the original owners, or the descendants of the original owners of these artifacts. The oral narratives I have been able to collect from the individuals complete the story in a truly remarkable and unexpected way. From Dr. Mehring the naval doctor to Franz Kecht the Ritterkreuztrager (Knights Cross holder) and infantry Batallion commander, from Luftwaffe Stabsfeldwebel Fritz Weise to Willi Luske, the supply column commander, all these men have a story to tell, and their story was made accessible to us the moment they engraved or had engraved their officer daggers. Thus I have, in the process of my research and enjoyment of these pieces, become interested in their "biography" and "social lives." As Saunders and Cornish have shown in regard to other military artifacts(see sources below), I would argue that from their manufacture in Solingen factories, through the uses made of them by their original owners, to their current resting place in my display cabinet, objects such as these have accumulated several layers of meaning, several social roles and dimensions we will do well to try unpacking. As part of his walking out uniform or Ausgehanzug, the offizierdolch (officer dagger) was central to the public image of the Wehrmacht officer, and was iconic of his leadership status. At a retail price of over 21 Reich marks (including the dagger, hangers and portepee) out of a salary for an unmarried army Leutnant of 183 RM (after tax), these daggers were costly, and specially valued by officers. "We wore it on Sundays, to enhance our good looks" says Dr. Hans Mehrle, Ritterkreuztrager. This is illustrated, it seems to me, in the bodily posture, attitude and in the centrality of the daggers we see in my collection of period studio photos shown in this website. The daggers in my collection all exhibit evidence of use, seen particularly in the color change of the grips, from original ivory color to varying shades of yellow, more so on the eagle side of the grip which was always exposed to sunlight and elements. Use is also evident in the slightly eroded original designs on the metal scabbard, particularly the side that rubbed against the uniform while walking, on the reverse crossguard, and on the metal rings that the hangers attached to. During this period, especially in the early years of 1935-1941, these "short side weapons", as referred to in the Heeresverorndnungsblatt 17 (1935), No. 202, had active social lives. In July 1938 the Supreme Wehrmacht Command (OKW) clarified what apparently was an open question: what to do with side weapons in public places like hotels, taverns etc. Side weapons including daggers had to be taken off and stored securely, either in the cloakroom, or, if there was no cloakroom, within the reach of the soldiers so as to make loss impossible (HVBl. 20 (1938), part B, No. 316, p. 214). Engraving of dedications and presentations of all sorts on officer daggers reached their height with the victorious return to bases after the Westerm campaign in the late summer 1940. During this period, daggers were widely photographed in wear during Sunday visits to the theater, walks with girlfriends and wives, studio portraits, etc. In 1944 the wear of the offizierdolch was prohibited and only the official issue pistol could be worn as a sidearm. Consequently, these daggers ended forgotten in drawers and lockers, or the "closet of a family member in Schlesien" as happened to Erwin Groke´s dagger, as he himself has told us.
When German officers surrendered to the allied forces, particularly across Europe, these daggers were among the items they were asked to surrender (anything that qualifies as a side weapon, cameras, etc). US GIs became particularly fond of enemy daggers, swords and medals, and began shipping them home in their thousands. These war trophies were then admired, and eventually stored and perhaps forgotten again in some cold Kansas attic. Years later, as collector guides and militaria shows drove up the value of these relics, a collecting hobby was born, and German daggers were, perhaps more than ever before, valued, treasured, traded and displayed, though often in a nostalgic, if not outrightly philo-nazi manner. Indeed, the manner in which artifacts are displayed can communicate as much as the artifacts themselves. Thus from "worn with pride" as icons of military leadership, to shelved and forgotten, to taken as souvenirs and war trophies, to stored and again forgotten, to avidly bought, traded, displayed and collected, to objects of material culture and archival study, these objects have had and continue to have a social history, a biography of sorts that is worth telling, and serve as a valuable link and window into the time, place and people that created them. Material culture works on the basis of the assumption that objects are capable of conveying meaning and even telling stories about the cultures which produced them. As the second world war becomes more distant in time, we do well to examine and attempt to interpret, along with written and other sources, the material objects from the period. I will end for now with the following anecdote. In one of my recent conversations with Erwin Groke, former Hauptmann of the 50th Infanterie Regiment, 111 Infanterie Division, Heeresgruppe Sud, and original owner of one of my named Heer daggers. He stressed that these dolche were in a sense, "no big deal" and that he left his in a family closet, as they had "more important things to think about. When I told him, however, that the dagger had emerged in Canada and was now in my possession, he asked: "Wow! Can I get it back?" The results of our research thus far are displayed in the following pages under the four main headings of Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine and Sturmabteilungen daggers. For the descriptive aspect of this ongoing project, I rely partially on the useful framework suggested by the University of Washington´s Daniel Waugh in "Material Culture - Objects" (A project of the Center for History and New Media, George Mason University, available online):
I welcome the feedback of all my readers, both on the descriptive text and accompanying photos, as well as the associated documentation from the archives and other sources. Any inappropriate feedback will be deleted as soon as I have time.
On names and remembrance: "Unto every person there is a name…" A name expresses the essential uniqueness and dignity of each person. This is a nearly universally accepted fact, and is also evident in the personalakten of Wehrmacht officers. Some examples from the personalakten of officers mentioned in this webs site:
In these examples and many others we see that Wehrmacht ranglisten, stamrolle, certificates of birth and arian ancestry are all highly precise name records created and maintained to certify the legality and legitimacy of a German officer´s military career. Though inscribing one´s offizierdolch was a rare practice, the officers whose daggers are the object of our study in this web site, all bear the name of their owners for purposes of celebration, dedication, or simply identification. A name, and the dignity associated with it, is part of what nazi aggression and extermination took away from its victims. The six million Jews murdered in the holocaust all became mere numbers to their killers, as their roots, personal histories, property, and eventually their lives were taken away. The mass murder of Jews, Soviet civilians, Poles, gypsies and so many others would have been impossible without the military might of the German Wehrmacht. Its participation in these crimes, sometimes actively, more often passively, can no longer be questioned in light of the evidence brought to light by the 1995 exhibition Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht 1941 bis 1944 (War of Annihilation. Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944) its early mistakes notwithstanding. This exhibition, though confirming the conclusions of the Nuremberg trials regarding the Wehrmacht, that is, that it wasn´t an inherently criminal organization, provided substantial evidence of its participation in crimes, some times directly, some times as an accessory of the SS or Polizei units. This writer is fully aware of that research and seeks in no way, by the exhibits shown on this website, to glorify the original bearers of these artifacts.The virtual exhibits shown on Zeitzeugen1939.com, together with the associated research, should in no way be seen as part of an uncritical Erinnerungskultur (remembrance culture) that glorifies the objects of Nazi Germany or isolates them from the heinous crimes of the regime which produced them. These exhibits should be seen as historical artifacts which are now objects of material culture study, a study which takes fully into account their historical context. Most of the owners of the Sturmabteilung daggers shown in the small SA section were fervent Nazis involved in crimes committed in and around Kiel, as we have shown. These men were the fighting arm of the NSDAP and are directly responsible for the enforcement of Nazi brutality in the earlier half of the NS period. The Navy officers who once owned the Kriegsmarine daggers shown here were probably the men least stained by association with the Nazi regime, and at least in one instance espoused values opposed to those of the NSDAP. In this case at least the probably apocryphal saying of Hitler holds true: "My Luftwaffe is National Socialist, my army is reactionary, and my navy is Christian." Of the Heer officers whose daggers are shown in the Heer section, most were veterans of the Eastern front. As such, these men were involved in a brutal war of aggression and annihilation, and probably played at least a supporting role to the mass murder of Jews, civilians, Soviet PoWs etc. I am not aware of the direct involvement of the Heer divisions these men belonged to in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Their own testimonies, where available, are testimonies of men who fought bravely under extreme circumstances, whose motivation for doing so was primarily survival, the survival of their men and of their country. The case of Groke is a special one, as evidence shows he has been engaged in various forms of denial. His response to the Hamburg Exhibition on Wehrmacht War Crimes as recorder by a British newspaper, his signing of exculpatory, "freedom of speech," and possibly holocaust denial related documents makes his position clear. The same cannot be said of the others. In short, the present website is a material culture study of named Wehrmacht officer daggers which places these artifacts, and their original owners in their historical context, one of the darkest periods in human history. The focus of this study is, therefore, the materiality and the social and military histories of these artifacts and their original owners.
Sources for military material culture study Sources for military material culture study, relevant to artifacts as opposed to pillboxes or airfields, are very few. Among the articles and books that I have found useful are:
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