martedì 29 aprile 2014

German dog tag of a italian prisoner of war

What today I want to tell you the story of a real stroke of luck.
Last flea market I have not found anything, I was leaving and most of the banquets was withdrawing the goods because there was bad weather.
In fact I had seen something beautiful but the prices were really crazy especially for those periods where the money is always short.
After a while in one of those boxes full of old iron I see a square metal plate with three holes. Immediately I thought of a plate of some mess, I'll take it in hand and surprise.

I notice that is a plate having the military written on the two halves mirrored with respect to the central axis that is perforated to allow the tear in case of need.
The three holes and the bill remind me of the German plates, but those usually are oval instead this is rectangular. Unfortunately I do not know German, but the writing and characters imprinted remind me the style of the second world war, so even without knowing what it is exactly, I'll take it, ask me € 10, taking her away to 5 €.


The inscriptions are engraved:

STALAG IA/EB
Nr. 14756 FZ
JT

When I got home I do a brief search on the internet and find out that the word STALAG indicates the German prison camps of World War II, where they were interned captured enemy soldiers and undisciplined German soldiers.

I find it on this site http://www.pegasusarchive.org/pow/Stalag.htm that the wording IA / EB indicates the stalag of Ebenrode Nesterov in today's Russia.
The figures are to indicate the number and FZ JT probably some internal classification of the prisoner at the camp.

At this point I start to fantasize about that story may have had this plate, maybe an Italian military or partisan captured after September 8, I will not conceal that this hypothesis is the one I like best because my grandfather was captured by the Germans and passed a bad period of imprisonment in Germany so he probably had a small plate like this, other hypothesis than a military internship some foreign army on the way back, after the war, he threw a military or Russian or German, after a period of internment, he was sent to the front line to fight against the partisans. Who knows, only time machine could reveal the history of this object, I'm happy all the same.




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