Dear Tore, I hope to see you back on Business in the group!!!!
Time to present another “Erkennungsmarke” ID Tag in a good condition, which makes it the fourth in my collection.
If a couple of weeks ago, I showed a Pilot one:
This I will showing one from their natural enemy, the Flak units, or better to say, the Flug-Abwehr.
Friedrich Huberth was born in 1898 in Eggolsheim, not far away from Bamberg in Bavaria (ok, Franken). He was working on the fields when he joined the army in November 1916. He stated in the Reserve of the Royal Bavarian 19th Infantry Regiment, which was part of the 5th Bavarian Division, III Army Corps. Here he will remain for the rest of the war.
During this period, he was trained in the use of the Pistol 08, the “Gewehr” 98 and the MG08. This is why, already in March 1917, he was transferred to the reserve of a MG Company, which was not attached to any division but acted independent. In fact, he was employed in a few Companies, like he 3rd or the 5th.
In September 1917, he was transferred to a MG Company in the Royal Bavarian 7th Regiment, again in the 5thInfantry Division. At this time, the Division was fighting in Flandern, so it may have taken part on the “Dritte Flandernschlacht” or Third Battle of Ypres to try to stop the allied offensive. Still, I have also read about this division, that it was located in the quiet area of Deulemont, 20 km in the south of Ypern. Having a look at Friedrich’s Records in the Hauptarchiv München, he was definitely in Flandern the whole time, being also sick in a couple of occasions in October(1 month) and December 1917 (1 week).
In March 1918, he was sent back to his original unit: Ersatz MG Kompanie 3 – III Armee Korps. Just a month later and checking his records in the Hauptarchiv, we see, that Friedrich is transferred to a different unit: “Flamga 803”, which means: Flug-Abwehr-MG-Abteilung 803”. This is actually the one appearing in his Tag ID.
To be honest, I have found almost no information about this type of Unit during the First World War, just that in August 1917, there were 25 of those Flug-Abwehr-MG-Abteilungen, each one with 3 companies and 12 MG’s each one, so in total 36 Machine Guns.
I guess, by the Time, Friedrich joined that unit, they would use any MG available at the moment, being the MG 08 the one in more numbers, even an specific MG 08 was designed for Tanks and Planes: MG 08 TuF . Still there were other types, like the 3,7 Cm Grunson-Hotchkiss (Flaming Onion) or the Maxim Flak M14.
The “Flamga 803” was going to operate in the area between Arras and Peronne, almost until the end of the war.
Friedrich ended the war without any recorded decoration.
Sources:
Histories of the Two Hundred and Fifty One Divisions of the German Army.
genealogy.net
Foto from Spiegel.de
Deutschlands Heer und Marine im Ersten Weltkrieg