THE ROUNDER KNIGHT'S CROSS

THE ROUNDER KNIGHT'S CROSS

In the early 2000s, the major militaria forums began buzzing about a newly identified variant of the Knight's Cross, distinguishable by the rounded inner corners of the frame beading. Certificates of Authenticity issued by certain dealers and specialists began appearing, like the example below, dating from 2003. 

A Rounder authenticated by Nimmergut in 2003

There have been fakes of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 since the end of the Second World War. However, the average collector can reduce the risk factor quite considerably by doing some research and familiarising himself with the die characteristics of known originals. The task is rendered all the less daunting if you  bear in mind that the Präsidialkanzlei authorised just seven firms to supply the Knight's Cross during the War. 

A rare KC by C F Zimmermann: LDO code L/52 on the ribbon clip

 

The firms in question were Godet of Berlin, C E Juncker of Berlin, Deschler & Sohn of Munich, Klein & Quenzer of Oberstein, Otto Schickle of Pforzheim, C F Zimmermann of Pforzheim and Steinhauer & Lück of Lüdenscheid. Research indicates that the Knight's Cross supplied by Godet was sourced from C F Zimmermann, who also supplied Godet with the 1939 Iron Cross 1st Class, as well as supplying crosses to the government in their own right.

Unfortunately, the dies of the Steinhauer & Lück and Klein & Quenzer crosses are known to have been used to reproduce 1939 pattern Knight's Crosses after the Second World War, which explains not only the mint Klein & Quenzer KCs introduced to the marketplace by various dealers a few years ago but also the "flawed die" 1939 pattern Steinhauer & Lück KCs. 

The Juncker factory was bombed in December 1944 and the dies vanished, making the Juncker Knight's Cross one of the safest variants from the viewpoint of the average collector. Some specialists contend that the firm of Wilhelm Deumer also produced the Knight's Cross but this remains open to discussion.

A 'Rounder' advertised by the now-discredited dealer Craig Gottlieb

An example of the 'Rounder' variant was shown on Page 336 of The Iron Cross of 1939 (2002 - Bender) by the noted specialist Gordon Williamson, who remarked: "Other manufacturers certainly made Knight's Crosses during the period prior to May 1945. A variant is known in which the corners of the frame adjacent to the swastika are rounded rather than pointed. Although several manufacturers have been theorized, no evidence has yet risen to allow the manufacturer of this type to be firmly identified.".

Craig Gottlieb: graverobber

  

To place Williamson's remarks in context, several firms other than the officially authorised suppliers certainly produced the Knight's Cross during the Second World War but these can only be regarded as unofficial tailors' copies and of even less value than the LDO-marked crosses produced up to October 1941 by the official suppliers for retail sale, a practice finally forbidden by the Präsidialkanzlei. Williamson was exercising caution in pointing out that the manufacturer remained to be identified.  

It was not long before one of the more vocal, flamboyant members of the ubiquitous Wehrmacht Awards Forum or WAF began writing about the example he owned of this exciting variant. Brian Hildemann, a Canadian scoutmaster who has never been investigated for sexually abusing boys, stated that he had been given this cross by his late aunt Vera von Etzel in the late 1960s and that it was the actual cross awarded to her husband at Stalingrad before he was killed in action there. 

WAF members oohed and aahed  at Mr Hildemann's wonderful memento, straight from the hands of the widow of a fallen Ritterkreuztrager. And if anyone there asked how the cross had managed to make it back from Stalingrad to the grieving widow or why there was no Knight's Cross Holder named von Etzel listed in the Ritterkreuzträger rolls, their posts were quickly deleted and the authors threatened or banished.As for Vera von Etzel, it was rumoured that this was a stage name used by one of Hildemann's drag artist friends.

The mystery of which firm made this hitherto unnoticed variant remained unsolved. A challenger to the hegemony of the serious, established authorities like Gordon Williamson and the late Harald Geissler stepped forward in the shape of a German-born Michigan autoworker named Dietrich Maerz. Maerz had recently appeared on the Wehrmacht Awards Forum, rapidly making friends in a community of Nazi memorabilia collectors who, for the most part, spoke little or no German so members like Mr Maerz were to be welcomed. 

Mr Maerz wrote an article about The Rounder, published on various websites including the WAF, in which he not only established that examples of this variant had been found with the famous Schloß Klessheim hoard liberated by American soldiers in 1945 but that there existed an example bearing the Präsidialkanzlei Lieferant code '7', which was issued to the Berlin firm of Paul Meybauer. Mr Maerz even found an example that was "ground-dug", which is usually a euphemism for "stolen from a soldier's grave". 

 

And then there was the cross given to Brian Hildemann by his aunt, a direct link with history. The article was well-illustrated and we reproduce a copy of it here for educational purposes, under Fair Use provisions in copyright legislation. Maerz subsequently renounced this article - and denied that it was ever posted on the WAF, where he is now an administrator. Maerz later self-published a book that he claimed rivaled the work of Giessler and Williamson before setting up a printing house to publish reference works on other topics.

Mr Maerz would later retract his article but one is nonetheless compelled to wonder how many of his readers bought Rounder Knight's Crosses from the dealers who suddenly had them in stock, believing them to be crosses by the Berlin firm of Paul Meybauer or, at least, supplied to the Präsidialkanzlei by Meybauer. 

As for the "one known" cross bearing the 7 hallmark, Mr Maerz stated on the Wehrmacht Awards Forum that this rare example belonged to him, although he evidently forgot to include this attribution when preparing his article for publication on the Internet.   Defenders of the Meybauer theory countered by citing the LDO-marked Oakleaves and Swords by the firm of Meybauer, which undoubtedly date from the early war period. 

 

However, these were not official pieces and any unauthorised firm producing the Knight's Cross in any of its grades after October 1941 risked sanctions. Moreover, the fact that Meybauer produced some examples of the OLS is no proof that the firm ever produced a Knight's Cross. And so, the collecting world, or that small part of it concerned with the 1939 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, had reached an impasse.

Dietrich Maerz: self-made Nazi awards expert

Some pundits asked why these 'Rounder' variants had not been noticed in the six decades since the end of the Second World War. Others remarked on the dealers who were offering these "Rounder" KCs, some of whom had spotty reputations. A few rude people asked where Mr Maerz had come from, even going as far as suggesting that he was acting on behalf of a ring of dealers interested not just in promoting and selling fakes but in rehabilitating preivously discredited high end fakes. 

 

Defenders pointed out that not all of the crosses shown in Mr Maerz's article were sourced from dealers; there was the Schloß Klessheim example, brought home to the US by a veteran who described a vast safe in the château. In reality, it was a fairly normal safe in the corner of an office containing a few medals and decorations like the diamond-inlaid German Crosses later confiscated by the American authorities from the veterans who had stolen them in May 1945.

 

There was also the ground-dug example, looking as if it had been stolen from a grave; and then there was the cross awarded to Brian Hildemann's great-uncle at Stalingrad, where he had been killed in action. 

 

Unfortunately for the crooks behind the Rounder scam, Hildemann, a cornerstone of Mr Maerz's article, treated readers to an extraordinary and very public emotional breakdown on the WAF, confessing to fabricating the entire story about his Ritterkreuztrager great-uncle receiving this "Rounder" KC at Stalingrad and admitting that he had acquired the cross pictured in Mr Maerz's article from a dealer rather more recently than the late 1960s. 

 

The bromance between the Canadian Scoutmaster and would-be German aristocrat Brian Hildemann von Etzel and the German auto mechanic and and publisher Dietrich Maerz had crumbled as quickly as Hildemann's story and the "academic and scholastic" article pronouncing these recent fakes out of the United Kingdom as genuine wartime variants by Paul Meybauer of Berlin. 

 

 

Maerz was obliged to engage in some rapid backpeddling and now denies that this article was ever published on the Wehrmacht Awards Forum. Of course, like Brian Hildemann's public mea culpa and anything else deemed likely to embarrass the management of the WAF or their sponsors and hidden owners, the original article was quickly deleted. 

 

However, it was reproduced afterwards on another forum, infuriating Mr Maerz and the management of the WAF and other forums where he was enjoying VIP status as a published author, having just self-published his first book, which he energetically promoted as the definitive reference work on the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939.  

 

Mr Maerz's "initial reasoning" might have been influenced had he approached his subject in an "academic" way, by checking his principle source's story of a Knight's Cross awarded to his uncle at Stalingrad. No Etzel appears on the Ritterkreuzträger rolls. 

 

After his breakdown, Mr Maerz's keystone source popped in 2005 up on the Gentlemen's Military Interest Forum using the name Brian von Etzel and clarified the reasons for the lack of the name Etzel in the rolls: "The mother of the RK winner was the daughter of my grandfather's brother, a von Etzel. The RK winner's son served with him just a few miles away from Stalingrad and was also captured but survived the horrors of a prisoner of war camp. My mother considers the son her "cousin". I will only say the mother is a von Etzel.".

More nonsense from the keyboard of Dietrich Maerz

Mr Hildemann von Etzel went on to say that this relative of his was "a future RK winner who would tragically die in Stalingrad." The aunt described as having given Mr Hildemann von Etzel had previously been named by her "nephew" as Vera von Etzel. So a cousin had married a cousin, or so it seemed. And suddenly, the family Ritterkreuztrager's name was not Etzel after all. The GMIC management duly put everyone out of their misery by banning Mr Hildeman von Etzel.  

 

Apart from this question missed by Mr Maerz during his "academic and scholastic" compilation of utter balderdash, other questions arose in the minds of less sect-like readers. How, for instance, had the cross managed to make its way back from Russia to his uncle's widow? Had the Soviets sent it back with the dead hero's effects? Or did some kind comrade take it from the dead hero's neck and slip it into his pocket before boarding the last Ju52 out of the doomed city, or marching away westwards with Sven Hassel and his comrades? 

 

These were the sort of the questions deleted from the WAF and other forums, their authors threatened or banned, but not from MCF. Hildemann cracked and the whole Rounder scam unraveled, with dealers and their shills backing away from it as it it were a lump of plutonium. Mention Rounder Knight's Crosses to dealers today, or to Maerz, and they all seem to develop sudden amnesia.