Pictured are: Auschwitz Commandant Richard Baer, Dr. Josef Mengele, and the out-going Commandant Rudolf Hoess at the social gathering after the change of command ceremony on 29 July, 1944.
For people who are mainly remembered for non-military reasons, it is interesting to note their military decorations. Sturmbannfuhrer Baer is seen wearing the ribbons to the Eastern Front medal and the Iron Cross, Second Class; the Wound Badge in Black and the Iron Cross, First Class. These were awarded in respect of his service with the Totenkopf Division in the West and in Russia, in the course of whic he was wounded in Russia. Mengele is wearing (partly obscured) the Iron Cross First Class which (along with the Wound Badge in Black) he was awarded following an incident in which he was injured rescuing two comrades from a burning vehicle while serving as a medical officer with SS Wiking. As for Hoess, he was a highly-decorated WW1 veteran, earning the Iron Cross First Class (seen here); this was about as high as one could go as an NCO in the Kaiser’s army - in which Hoess had the honour of becoming one of the youngest soldiers to attain NCO status. Faintly visible on Hoess’s right breast is the Star of the Turkish War Medal - the so-called “Iron Crescent”. Hoess served a significant period of WW1 with Germany’s Turkish allies. The example of the Turkish War Medal seen here looks like a high-quality version of the type often commissioned privately by German recipients. The Turkish originals were of very low production quality by comparison. I seem to recall that examples of the privately-commissioned and “official” versions of this medal can be seen, side-by-side, in the WW1 section of the Belgian Museum of the Army, Brussels. If I have a net comment, I suppose it would be that just because you can exhibit courage in military circumstances does not mean that you are incapable of participating in the “banality of evil”, as well … Best regards, JR.