Customer Reviews

German Military Ribbon Bars: 1914-1957

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

BOOK SHOULD HAVE COVERED MUCH MORE THAN IT DID - IT IS A SMALL BOOK AND ONLY COVERS SOME BASIC INFORMATION - IT ONLY OFFERED GENERAL INFORAMTION -TO BE HONEST - IT WAS A DISAPPOINTMNET COMING FROM THIS BOOK COMPANY - SCHIFFER.

This book was a good effort for a non-German speaker writing before the internet, but it falls far short. You'd do much better reading some of the articles out there on the internet, and learning from some of the knowledgeable folks in any of the major internet forums. Numerous fake ribbon bars are unknowingly used as illustrations by Rev. Hayden - including the alleged Rommel bar on the cover.

At present, this is the best English language book on the subject. Unfortunately, it's the only English language book on the subject.

haydens research in this area is obvious. It makes for interesting reading. An excellent springboard for anyone starting out on a journey of exploration into this much neglected area of military history.

I was a bit dissapointed, but it might had been that I was expecting too much. On the age of the internet, it is my opinion, that a book about collectibles should offer more than it is available on line. A prime example of what I mean is the Frank Heukemes book and all the new books that have come with similar format. This one is not even close. For the new collector it might have some value. For the experienced one, I do not think it would add much to their fund of information.

I agree with the comments by the third reviewer about more information about the German ribbon bars. There should have been more explanations on why the Germans develop their ribbon bars differently compare to the rest of the world. In addition, there should have been explanations why the Germans did not standardizes their ribbon bars. You look at pictures of the German officers (Rommel, Sepp Dietrich, Von Senger, Molders, Galland, Pemsel, Milch, etc,) and their ribbon bars come in vary degrees of widths and lengths.

Finally, there should have been more pictures of German soldiers wearing their ribbon bars from 1957 to today. I would like to have seen a close up picture of Erich Hartmann's ribbon bars just before he retired from the service. In the book The Blond Knight of Germany, there was a picture of Erich Hartmann, his wife, and his daughter. In that picture, Hartmann look like he had about 20 to 40 ribbons on his uniform. I would also like to have seen pictures of West German ribbon bars of German officers who saw action in both World Wars and then were allowed to re-join the West German armed forces and receive West German medals. It would have been nice to see a combination of Imperial German, 3rd Reich German, and Federal German ribbon bars on those soldiers.