Victoria Cross??

[Reinout]

Dear Billy H.,

Some PlM explanations are necessary. The standard was never 18, It began as 8 and was raised to 16 (allegedly, the records cannot confirm it totally without doubt) for a short while (only MvR can be positively identified as falling under the "rule of 16") and from Feb/March 1917 the standard reached its final form: 20 victories. It certainly wasn't late in the war, where the air war was concerned.

The rule started out as 8, or actually, Boelcke and Immelmann set the standard there. After they had won the EK I and II, the Hohenzöllern KC was up next. They got it for 6. At that time victories were still rare so 6 was pretty much the frontier. But 7 and 8 followed and the Kaiser had nothing else left than the PlM to bestow. The Crown Order was not bestowed to junior officers on active flying (with the highly exceptional case of Rudolf Windisch). But the Kaiser certainly wasn't sorry to hand out those gongs!

The criteria for the medal were:
-a succesful defense of a fortress
-a succesful capture of a fortress
-a decisive win on the battlefield with the enemy clearly withdrawn

The first PlM went to Otto von der Linde who -with a mere squad of men- bluffed a Belgian fortress into surrender in 1914. Though not by combat, the criteria applied to him and he got his medal.

For airmen a standard had to be set, but that was not an actual matter during 1914/15. It became a matter when Boelcke and Immelmann made (inter)national heroes of themselves by downing one plane after the other. Sooner or later, they would have earned all other Prussian medals and the PlM was the next logical step after the Hohenzöllern KC.
Only the 1916 batch were for 8 victories, these men were:
Oswald Boelcke 8/40 KIA 28-10-16
Max Immelmann 8/15 KIA 18-6-16
Hans-Joachim Buddecke 8/13 KIA 10-3-18
Kurt Wintgens 8/19 KIA 25-9-16
Max Mulzer 8/10 KIFA 26-9-16
Otto Parschau 8/8 DOW 21-7-16
Walter Höhndorf ?/12 KIFA 1917
Ernst Freiherr von Althaus 8/9 (possibly 10) removed from flying status due to eye failure around June 1917 by MvR
Wilhelm Frankl 8(?)/19 or 20 KIA 8-4-17
Rudolf Berthold 8/44 murdered in Mar 1920
Gustav Leffers 8/9 KIA
Albert Dossenbach 9/15 KIA 15(?)-6-17
Hans Berr 10/10 KIA mid-1917

The next PlM aviation recipient was MvR with a score of 16. Then came Voss and Bernert, but it isn't totally clear exactly when they were recommended, for 16 or for 20? Since their scoring was so rapid, the line between their 16th and 20th victories is very thin. In fact, Bernert scored #17-21 in one day...

While politics certainly played a part in German medal awarding, it was mostly when states were called upon to invest sons of other states with their awards. Prussia-Bavaria and their continuous bickering are excellent examples, as is the case of the then NCO Rudolf Widisch who received the Crown Order from the Kaiser when the Oberste Kriegsherr's attempts at promoting Windisch to officer status had been foiled by the Saxon authorities (who had the right to promote/demote its own soldiers).

It is my impression though that very few aviation awards are of the political type. Doesint matter if teh standard is 8 or 20, the standard was set and had to be met - that's final! Only two cases where the 20 mark wasn't reached: Goering (I hear the crowd already!) and Kissenberth (a Bavarian of all people!). Goering unexplicably got his medla for "only" 18 victories while Kissenberth was so severely wounded after his 19th victory that he'd never return to combat. He was given the PlM anyway, a nice gesture I would think.

The room is open to receive differing opinions...

Kind regards,

Reinout

[Reinout]

Sorry, I hit "submit" before I was done checking the spelling and adding a few items.

#1: read the list as name, # of victories at time of PlM-award, </>, # of total victories achieved, date of death if combat/WWI related.
#2: Höhndorf's score must have been 8. He was awarded the PlM in July and in those days, a PlM would arrive within one week at the most after scoring one's 8th victory. July was a particularly good month with 3 PlM's being awarded. However Parschau was wounded just two days later and died of those wounds on the 21st of that month.

I'll stop now.

Kind regards,

Reinout

Please see my earlier post under "Victoria Cross?" for notes re the award of the Order of the Sacred Treasure "for war service" and of the Order of the Golden Kite "solely for bravery in action by officers and men..."
Liz Milne

[Frank_Olynyk]

Reinout,
One case to add to your list of PlM recipients, is Christiansen (sp?), who got his after 3 victories, but hundreds of flights, mostly recon. I suspect Göring may have gotten his at 18 victories also because of his continuous service in the war. Wounded in 1914, then observer training and later pilot training, he basically had flown continuously, with little if any leave (except for a later wound in late 1916) since 1915 up to the point he received the PlM.

Frank.

[leo]

Want to become confused? Try to sort out the hows and whys of the Austrian medals. There was one you had to apply for yoursef. Banfeld was the only one to do so. He was awarded the Maria Theresa Ordern.

leo

[Reinout]

Frank,

Christiansen's victory record was largely unknown a few years ago, when O'Connor published his Volume II in 1990 or 1991, so the actual number of victories at the time of his award was unknown, but he obviously didn't get it for his 20th! BTW, in the end he surpassed the norm by 1 so he certainly deserved it. However, if he got a PlM for 3 victories and continuous service, than he shouldn't be listed among the fighter pilots, but under the PlM two-seater pilots (that list would increase to two!) with Wilhelm Griebsch.

Interesting, what do you know of his victories?

Regarding Goering, while certainly true, it doesn't explain why he was given an exception. Jacobs and a few others had also been flying continuously since 1915 or earlier.

Kind regards,

Reinout