Oswald Boelke

[Harold W. Hollimon]

Why did not Boelke recieve the order of St. Henery as did other Aces,such as Voss,the Red Baron,Imelman and others.

[Amy]

Harold:

From what I understand, during the time Boelcke was commissioned as an officer, each kingdom offered their own commissions to the native-born men. Instead of choosing the Kingdom of Saxony, Boelcke chose a Prussian commission. It's thought that this was due to the fact that although Boelcke was born in Saxony, he had older siblings born in South America and just didn't have a kinship with Saxony that he might have had otherwise. The Prussian commission could have contributed to the reason why the Kingdom of Saxony awarded so many awards to other airmen but essentially ignored Boelcke.

Amy

[moritz]

Boelcke was born in Saxony-Anhalt (Sachsen-Anhalt) which was a province of Perussia...

MvR did NOT receive the St. Henry Order!

Do you mean Immelmann? or Imelmann? the second was born in Hannover and did not get the St. Henry - the other was born in Saxony...

[rammjaeger]

"MvR did NOT receive the St. Henry Order!"

Das wäre mir neu, Moritz. Laut "Der Königlich-Sächsische Militär-St. Heinrichs-Orden 1736-1918" erhielt MvR den Orden am 16. April 1917. Bist Du sicher, daß Du den Orden nicht mit der Militär- St. Henrich-Medaille verwechselst, die es nur für Unteroffiziere gab?

[Amy]

Moritz:

Yeah, I’m getting my provinces and kingdoms mixed up. Regardless, this would help explain why native Saxon Immelmann was awarded the Saxony St. Henry medal as opposed to Boelcke although their careers ran pretty much concurrently. Which incidentally, it appears that Immelmann preferred his Commander's St. Henry order over the PlM as there are photographs of Immelmann wearing the St. Henry order at the neck, above the PlM.

[rammjaeger]

Amy,

the St. Henry Medal is an award only for NCOs but the St. Henry Order is an award for officers!

Immelmann did never get the St. Henry medal but two times (or better two classes of) the St. Henry order!

Regards

Hannes

[Amy]

Hannes:

That I did know. 2nd sentence should have "order" instead of "medal" which is correctly written in the remainder of the reply.:)

Email to follow later!

Amy

[rammjaeger]

Typical German nit-picker at work. Sorry, Amy. :)