Help with Jewish Imperial German soldier

ebeeby

ebeeby

Member
Long story short, I was able to help a family whose grandfather had been awarded the EK I and II during WWI but had them revoked by the Nazis. He had saved the regiment from a gas attack while on guard duty (so the story goes) on the Eastern Front in the Great War.

Can anyone help with any additional info on this soldier?

Alexander Zanders
Born May 21, 1893
Frankfurt am Mein

Per a brief oral history from the soldier's son, a Lt. Col. Manfred Herdman nominated Pvt. Zanders for the EKI for the gas attack incident and had to argue his case with a General Hauser who pointed out that Zanders was a Jew. Herdman reminded the General that his life had also been saved by Zanders and the award was made. A year later, Zanders was awarded the EKII for an action for which I have no information.

Thanks for any help,
Eric
 
Eric,

it is not particularly helpful that neither a colonel Herdman nor a general Hauser appear in any roll of any contingent of the German Army in WW1.

Regards
Glenn
 
Eric,

finding a private soldier (or NCO for that matter) is rather problematical. However, I am not convinced there would have been any arguments with the award recommendation based solely on the gentleman's faith. It was certainly not uncommon for members of the Jewish faith to be awarded an Iron Cross.

Regards
Glenn
 
Another factor is that not all family history is really true, while researching my book on Evacuation Ambulance Company #8, I found that one of the drivers in the company has listed in his obituary that he was awarded the Verdun Medal and the Croix de Guerre with palm, no where in the records does it show that any of the men of this company were awarded these medals. He was a wealthy influential person in later life, and like Walt Disney, was not above padding his war record. This may also be the case here too, or it is possible that the names of the officers were remembered wrong.
Best
Gus
 
Glenn....a bit off topic here but what is the situation with the Brit WW1 soldier's records that were "Blitzed" during WWII? I tried to get information on my Scottish grandfather John Foster (HLI) back in the 90's but was told that many WW1 service records were destroyed but what had survived would be eventually available.
 
Brian,

to be honest, not really my area of research. Could I suggest asking someone at the Great War Forum? I think a answer would be forthcoming there.

Regards
Glenn
 
Brian,

The British National Archive has "medal cards" online, the search for John Foster in the Highland Light Infantry yielded four results: http://discovery.nationalarchives.g...earch=true&_cr1=WO+372&_dt=M&_col=200&_hb=tna. If your grandfather is there you then you can purchase a scan. The intentionally distorted image is so distorted that it doesn't show you anything useful, but I think it costs £ 3,30 to buy a scan so you can take that risk.

The service records that used to be available for free if I remember correctly are now behind the ancestry.co.uk pay wall :x I will never understand why public information is allowed to be used to generate income for a private company rather than be freely available, it's the taxpayer's info paid for with taxpayer's money.

Hope this helps,

Lars
 
Lars13 said:
The service records that used to be available for free if I remember correctly are now behind the ancestry.co.uk pay wall :x I will never understand why public information is allowed to be used to generate income for a private company rather than be freely available, it's the taxpayer's info paid for with taxpayer's money.
Lars
Click to expand...
I think these records are probably still available for free, but you have to figure out how to get them. You are not paying for the information so much as the convenience of availability.
Best
Gus
 
Eric, I checked all "Zanders" in the "Verlustlisten" (70 guys) but could not find a single Zanders with nickname Alexander and no Zanders at all native from Frankfurt.... :|

Are you sure about the nickname and the orthograph of "Zanders"? Do you know his unit?

Philippe
:)
 
Philipe - That is very kind and thoughtful of you to do that search! I will report the results to the grand-daughter and press on naming conventions...

Kind regards,
Eric
 
argonne said:
Eric, I checked all "Zanders" in the "Verlustlisten" (70 guys) but could not find a single Zanders with nickname Alexander and no Zanders at all native from Frankfurt.... :|

Are you sure about the nickname and the orthograph of "Zanders"? Do you know his unit?

Philippe
:)
Click to expand...

Philippe - Whoops - is Verlustlisten the casualty list? This soldier died in Dallas, Texas long after the war.

Eric
 
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