Identify WWI soldier by uniform

S

shellym

New member
Being new to the forum, I say hello to all.

The soldier in question is my great grandfather, Paul Ferdinand Hecht, born Stendal, Germany. I don't know if he enlisted in Stendal or in Berlin. I must assume he enlisted close to home and I know he lived in Berlin during his lifetime.

I think he was a gunner or rifleman of sorts? Can someone please help by perhaps shedding more light on him. Sorry, the photo is not the best quality and it is the only one I have of him.

Also, can anyone recommend a good place to enquire about military records for WWI soldiers from Germany? He did not die in WWI.

His photo can be accessed at the following link or if you have difficulty, send me a private message and I can email it.

Regards, Michelle

http://s777.photobucket.com/albums/yy56/shellym_photo/
 
Hey Shelly
If you need help posting your photo, just ask, we are happy to try to help identifying it as soon as we can see an image.
Best
Gus
 
Here is Shellym's photo,
Paul20Ferdinand.jpg

He is a german soldier, but I can not tell much else from the photo, there are some members who can give a run down on possible regiments by the type of cuff on his Waffenrock, he is wearing the lanyard of a marksman, and is armed with a Gew 98.
 
He was born in Koltschen kreis, Oststernberg, Pommern in 1876, so he would be about 41 years when this was taken.

He was a saddler by trade so I guess by his age that he was drafted. Were men drafted into regiments/units in or close to their home towns?

Would his place of residence give any clues to the type of unit he was in?
 
Hi all,

Re: my great grandfather in WWI. I have been given info since my last post stating that he was a marksman and that this photo was taken sometime after spring 1916 due to the style of his helmet.

I'm still trying to find out which regiment he was in. I understand that because of his age during WWI (about 45/46) he would probably have been in the reserves.

He was married in 1910 and lived in Spandau, Berlin for the rest of his life so I wonder whether his unit/regiment came from that region? Can anyone confirm this?

After searching around a bit for reserve divisions in or near Berlin (Brandenburg?) I found two reserve divisions (5th and 6th) that were raised in the Brabdenburg area in 1914 until 1919.

Am I on the right track here?

cheers from Australia
 
Now unfortunately you're not on the right track. It is extremely confusing because the system was not at all like many modern systems. Your great-grandfather was too old to have been in the reserves.

The Landwehr
After your seven years of Dienstphlicht your class passed into the Landwehr (in general at the age of 27). Command-and-control really changed here. You are no longer under the control of the Regiment but rather under the area Army Corps district. The Army Corps district was further broken down into brigade districts and brigade districts broken down into Landwehr districts or Bezirkskommandos. Again, this was broken down into a first and second ban. The first ban lasted for five years. In general there were two training periods in the first ban, lasting from one to two weeks. From the first ban, you are passed into the second ban at about age 32 until you were 39. There was no training requirement in the second ban. There were 96 Landwehr regiments. However not all of these had the same number of battalions. The study of the correlation between active regiments and Landwehr battalions/regiments is a massive undertaking far outside the scope of this article. Landwehr units got hand me downs and the what ever was left over of both active and reserve units. For instance, in 1914 there were no platoons of machine gunners and no field kitchens in the Landwehr units. Many units were issued the 88/05 old style rifle and as many as 20% of the units still wore blue uniforms in 1914. The shortage of equipment was especially true in those Landwehr regiments assigned to fortress duty. lxii

Landsturm.

The Landsturm also had two bans. The first ban included all untrained folks that were not on active service from the ages of 17 through 39. I should point out here that those between the ages of 17 and 20 who have not yet entered service and have had no training are enrolled in the first ban of the Landsturm. The second ban included all former soldiers and untrained individuals between the ages of 39 and 45. Second Ban Landwehr soldiers joined the second band of the Landsturm at age 39. This was a really rough militia. There was no training requirement. A home guard at best. lxiii
Click to expand...

You might get a feel of the system by reading parts of this article
http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/MilitaryService_08_02.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If I was to guess I would put your great-grandfather into a local Landsturm unit. They were locally recruited in the area that they were living at the time and could have done service in many rear area functions. For instance these guys did a great deal of prisoner guarding. The uniform really become semi-problematic because these kind of units got every kind of hand-me-downs.

We are headed to Australia next January and look forward to see your wonderful landscapes.

VR
Joe
 
Joe,

I don't mind being wrong....that's for the fantastic, informative link. I've struggled to find anything about WWI that was useful to me. My grandfathers both fought in WWII in Germany and I was able to track down their entire military 'careers' much more easily.

I appreciate the link and will read it again more thoroughly this evening. Usually the Germans are so pendantic and officious with their record keeping... is there anyway of writing to some institution/museum/archives etc that may hold records of WWI soldiers?

Thanks again Joe, I appreciate the help! Also, you will love Australia! It's a big place... which places will you visit?

Michelle
 
shellym said:
// is there anyway of writing to some institution/museum/archives etc that may hold records of WWI soldiers?
Click to expand...
No. All German 1st war and prior service records, personnel rosters and card indices (Stammrollen und Karteimittel) of the Prussian Army, the transition army ("Ubergangsheeres), the Reichswehr, and the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche-Marine) were burned in an air raid on Berlin in February 1945. They were completely destroyed.

All that survived were medical records of those soldiers who were being treated in military hospitals (Lazarett). The records, most with personnel roster extracts (Stammrollenausz"ugen), for those born from 1890 on are stored at

Krankenbuchlager Berlin
Wattstrasse 11-13
3355 Berlin

and for those born before 1890 are stored at

Bundesarchiv - Milit"ararchiv
Wiesentalstrasse 10
79115 Freiburg/Breisgau

Here is a useful site; http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/earchive.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Obtaining German records is almost always futile due to the bombing in the second war. Tony
 
Wow, what a tragic loss (in more ways than one) !

Thanks for the information. I really appreciate it.

Oh well, I guess we'll just have to admire the photo and imagine what he might have done during the war.

Thanks again

Michelle
 
Michelle
He has Swedish cuffs and M1889 NCO ammo pouches, which were favored by pioniers (same as combat enginieers) & feld artillerie. Possibly Train (supply) troops also. As a civilian saddler, he would have been a good choice for troops that use horse drawn wagons. I know that isn't much help to your cause, but they are leads to follow.
 
Hi Wyliecoyote,

I know you said it might not be much to go on, but every little bit of information is helpful and much appreciated!

Thanks to experienced and knowledgable guys such as you, I might just be able to build up a small profile of this man.

Great work!

If anyone else has any ideas... I'm all for it!

Cheers Michelle
 
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