Wishing all the best to Tore!!! Come back soon.
Time to talk about more paper. This is another group, that was in my collection: the Militärpaß and the Soldbuch from the same “Bayer”: Georg Friedlein.
Georg was born in 1899 and lived in the north of Bavaria, just around 30 Km away from Coburg. He worked as a Basket Maker (Korbmacher) before the war started.
It was in June 1917 when he joined the army, the Landsturm – 1. Aufgebots in the Reserve of the Royal Bavarian 7thInfantry Regiment, which was part of the 5th Bavarian Division. It was not the best one, but quite combative and good.
Between January and August 1918, he received training in the use of the Gewehr 98, Pistole 08 and Gas Masks and trained “Schütze”. In addition, he also received some training with MG’s in the Barracks and training grounds of Hammelburg. It was also normal for them to train with captured MG’s.
So far, the war was coming to the end, but Georg didn’t take part in it.
This was going to change on the 6th of August 1918, when he joined a MG Company of the Royal Bavarian 25th Infantry Regiment, which in that moment was part of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division. It is not clear, that he saw action during this month. In the documents here shown, it is said, he joins the action in September but in the Munich Archives, in August.
August or September, this division was seen in the area of Messines (south of Ypres) and was in the process of reorganizing itself. Many of its Regiment came from other disbanded Divisions, like the one, were Georg was. It wasn’t a first class division, but fought hard and had plenty of casualties and, especially from September on, plenty of prisoners.
Georg served in Flanders until the end of the war, leaving the army in 1919, after being moved to the Reserve of the Royal Bavarian 19th Infantry Regiment. He came back home, being almost 20 years old, something that not everyone could say.
Even being in action for so little, more or less 3 Months, he was awarded with the Prussian Iron Cross Second class.
Sources:
Histories of the Two Hundred and Fifty One Divisions of the German Army.
Hauptarchiv München via Ancestry.com
Foto von internet (sorry, I forgot the source)