130 - Document estate Grenadier Regiments 82 and 1144, Iron Cross 1st Class, 1942/45

Document estate Grenadier Regiments 82 and 1144, Iron Cross 1st Class, 1942/45 Paper. Small estate of a soldier, six certificates of possession and award documents of the Wehrmacht, all in the same name: 1) Certificate of possession Infantry Assault Badge in Silver for the rifleman of the 4th (M.G.) Company of Infantry Regiment 82, "Im Felde", 30.4.1942, signed by the lieutenant colonel and regimental commander, seal "Infanterie-Regiment 82". 2) Document Winter Battle in the East 1941/42 Medal (Eastern Front Medal) for the senior lance corporal (Obergefreiter) of the 4th/Grenadier Regiment 82, 13.1.1943, "Für die Richtigkeit" regimental commander, regimental seal. 3) Award document War Merit Cross 2nd Class with Swords for the lance corporal of the 4th/Grenadier Regiment 82, division command post, 20.4.1943, signed by the lieutenant general and commander of the 31st Infantry Division, official seal. 4) Certificate of possession Wound Badge in Black for the lance corporal of the 4th/Grenadier Regiment 82 after being wounded on 9.7.1943, Fraktur form completed by hand, July 1943, military hospital seal. 5) Award document Iron Cross 2nd Class for the senior lance corporal of the 4th/Grenadier Regiment 82, division command post, 3.3.1944, signed "Ochsner", major general and commander of the 31st Infantry Division, official seal. 6) Award document Iron Cross 1st Class for the senior lance corporal of the 4th/Grenadier Regiment 1144, division command post, 9.2.1945, signed "Hufenbach", colonel and commander of the 562nd Volksgrenadier Division, official seal. With a unit value assessment of 1952 addressed to the recipient and two photographs of a group of soldiers, one of them in winter camouflage in the snow. Official seals with national eagle. Condition commensurate with age. The soldier's estate traces the path of a man from rifleman to senior lance corporal through the last three years of the war. Infantry Regiment 82 had been raised in 1936 in Wehrkreis XI with staff in Göttingen and belonged to the 31st Infantry Division from Braunschweig, which in 1941 took part in the advance across the Berezina and Dnieper and in the winter of 1941/42 in the Battle of Moscow; on 15 October 1942 the regiment was renamed Grenadier Regiment 82. The Infantry Assault Badge had been introduced on 20 December 1939 and was awarded in silver to the rifle companies of the non-motorised infantry; the Eastern Front Medal, called the "Gefrierfleischorden" (frozen meat order) by the soldiers, was instituted on 26 May 1942 for service between 15 November 1941 and 15 April 1942. The 31st Infantry Division was destroyed in the summer of 1944 during Operation Bagration in the pocket east of Minsk; its commander Wilhelm-Francis Ochsner (1899 to 1990), who signed the Iron Cross 2nd Class document, led the division from September 1943 to June 1944 and was taken prisoner. Grenadier Regiment 1144 belonged to the 562nd Volksgrenadier Division, which was raised in July 1944 at the Stablack training area in East Prussia and destroyed in the Heiligenbeil pocket at the end of March 1945. Its commander Helmuth Hufenbach (1908 to 1945), whose signature the Iron Cross 1st Class document bears, had taken over the division on 22 January 1945, fell on 27 March 1945 near Heiligenbeil and received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross the following day.