Document Grouping to Panzer-Jäger-Abteilung 38 Ottmar Pötsch

German WWII > Documents > Award / Qualification >

I love getting these type groupings. So often they are broken up and you lose the story. Ottmar was born April 10 1923. What a time to be born in Germany! The country was reeling after their defeat in WWI and the weight of the Treaty of Versailles. Then the Beer Hall Putch and the days of Hyper Inflation followed by a few years of rising fortunes in the 30"s with the rise of the Third Reich. Ottmars story in documents starts with a clean Police check and application to do his RAD Service with the Heinkel's aircraft company. From there he is discharged with a good service record to the Wermacht. He serves with Panzer-Jäger-Abteilung 38 a tank destroyer detachment as a driver. Well lucky Ottmar finds himself in Normandy in the summer of '44 as a corporal, (Obergefreiter) at division headquarters serving as a driver. As you can well imagine Normandy was not the safest place in the world and in August he is wounded and awarded the Black Wound Badge. He returns to unit and fights on to win the Iron Cross 2nd Class in October. Ottmar continues to serve right up to April '45 when he is captured and serves out the war in a POW camp. Apparently he suffered no long term injuries because he was deemed to be fit for "hard labor" during his medical exam and was released in August '46. A bit of detective work with internet access and this story came along. I'm a poor German reader but from the documents and 30 min. I was able to gleen all of this. This would make for a great research project.