Helmut Lent (1918 - 1944)

The International rules for the treatment of Prisoners of War stipulate, that personal  possessions remain with the prisoners. This is especially in regards to personal medals and symbols of honour, worn by the prisoner. Besides that, it is the assumed respect for the enemy, to leave him the medals awarded to him.

In many cases after World War 2, the Allies, not even the English, usually so proud of their  „Fair Play“, did not act according to that, but took the medals from the prisoners as valuable souvenirs. This even happened to distinguished German soldiers and army commanders.

 A particularly mean theft occurred in regards to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross,  with  Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, belonging to the famous night-flying ace Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant-colonel) Helmut Lent (1). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Lent    He was born 13. June 1918 in Neumark, joined  the airforce after his general qualification for university entrance and achieved his first victories in the air in the Polish campaign as well as in the air battle over Britain, and was from May 1941 the most successful night-flyer in the world. After the Knight's Cross (30. August 1941), Oak Leaves (6. June 1941), and Swords (3. August 1943), he received the Diamonds on 31. July 1944 (2). He was intended to be the inspector of the night flying squad, but died, after achieving 102 air kills, in a tragic plane crash (one motor ceased up) on 7. October 1944, shortly before landing at the airport in Paderborn, where he wanted to visit his friend Jabs, another Oak Leaves flying ace, who lived nearby. His possessions, among which were his medals, went to his widow in Altenwalde near Cuxhaven.

In April 1945 an English officer stole these awards of bravery along with two photo albums of  the Lent family from the house of the widow.

Helmut Lent achieved his first victory in the air 2.  September 1939 with his twinengined Me-110. This was one of the first German downings in WW2.  The Me 110  made a valuable contribution to the first Lightening Victories.

At the start of the seventies of the previous century these stolen medals and the photo albums  surfaced in the London Militaria-Market. The German Airforce Attaché at the Embassy in London heard about this and bought these items with the approval of the Federal Ministry for Defence for the converted value of 5 000 DM.  The photo albums were returned to the widow. With her consent, the Knight's Cross, with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds of her late husband were given to the Museum of Military History at the castle in Rastatt http://www.wgm-rastatt.de/  as valuable exhibition pieces. Until the widow of this bearer of  decorations was found, who  in the meantime had re-married, Herr Graffy kept the bravery awards in his strongroom.

The barrack of the FRG German Air Force in Rotenburg on the Wümme, in Lower Saxony,  was officially named „Lent-barracks“, after the famous Night-flyer. (1)

The thief, or his heirs, have still sucked material avantages from the loot of this disgraceful  deed, about forty years later, instead of apologising for the theft. They were also never called to account. Nor was any explanation ever given for this crime of 1945. Other British offices never apologised either for what could be seen as an embarassing incident for a „cultured nation“.

This is what Iron Cross with Diamonds looked like

Annotations

1 Letter of Mr. Ullrich Gaffy, Bonn,  23. April 2007 to the author.  Original letter in the  Archive of the Author.

2 Gunter Fraschka, „With Swords and Diamonds.The bearers of the highest German Bravery  medals“, University, Munich 1989, PPs. 171 – 175

Thank you for that very important essay.

Robbing captured German soldiers of everything valuable that they possessed  was the rule for which there few exceptions. Such behaviour with the knowledge and approval of officers merely shows how thoroughly criminal America's military and even Britain's military were.

I remember seeing many years ago a display in the West Point Military Museum of a dummy wearing Hermann Goering's leather hunting jacket as if there was nothing at all wrong with displaying his private, non-military property.
Years earlier they had proudly displayed the ornately decorated guestbook to Hermann Goering's Karin Hall.

Probably most German soldiers had a camera and wristwatch on them when they surrendered to the Allies. Those German cameras were especially valuable since many were Zeiss and Leica. American soldiers were not even allowed to
have cameras, generally. The loot that Americans took, and mounted on their arms and elsewhere, probably amounted to far more than the 1.25 billion dollars that America gave back to Germany after the war under the Marshall
Plan.

In addition, America stole intellectual property of every kind as well which amounted to far more than ten billion dollars and which became the basis for America's postwar industrial prosperity for decades to come. Americans also  routinely robbed ordinary German civilians on the streets in Germany after the war of everything valuable from wristwatches to anything else--at gunpoint if that seemed necessary.

Fritz