Adrian Stevenson
12th July 2008, 12:52
Hi Guys, I thought that I would tell the story of an SS dagger in my collection to illustrate why it pays never to give up on a research project and that time and luck and with the right help, things can pay off in the long run.
I will start the story back in 1991. The local Nottingham Evening Post newspaper had a small ad from a guy selling a black Allgemine SS tunic. I called him up and arranged to visit him to look at the jacket at his home in the city. I was dissappointed to find that the jacket was stripped of all insignia and had also suffered from post war alterations. Given the price of £230, I quickly passed on it. However, I asked if he had anything else for sale? He produced a 1933 pattern SS dagger. This I was impressed with and a deal was done with me paying £350 for it. One aspect I really liked about the dagger was the fact that it was serial numbered. I had already had some sucess with researching a 1936 pattern dagger in my collection so I hoped that I would find out the history of this new dagger too.
I wrote off to the Berlin Document Centre and in Jan of 1992 I got a reply. They had been very helpful with my previous research. I was dissappointed with their one line reply of:
"Dear Mr Stevenson, we have recieved your recent letter. Unfortunately we are not in a position to be of assistance."
Oh well I though, the guy must have been an NCO or enlisted man and so there must be no records available. Never mind it was worth a try and I still had a nice dagger to show for it.
We now fast forward to December 2000. I thought that I would have another go at finding out about this dagger. With the help of several internet friends, Gerard Stezelberger and Bernie Brule and Mike Miller, a name was come up with! SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Hans Eickemeyer. The small amount of info gleaned was taken from the July 1944 SS Officers Dienstalterliste. So he was an Officer after all.... I now had the date of his last promotion, 1.4.42, and his date of birth 23.06.1908 plus his last posting as a Staff Officer in the V SS Volunteer Mountain Korps.
I now wrote off to the Bundesarchive, but all I got was a copy of his entry in a 1987 reprinted copy of the 44 list. So sadly no new info there.
Have a look at the pic of the serial number. The order from Himmler for SS men to apply their serial number to their dagger was a shortlived one, so not all daggers are so marked. Eickemeyer had his number very neatly engraved. This is in sharp contrast to my other dagger which was very crudely die stamped with the owners initials and serial number. Another pic shows the serial number plus the admin group marking and makers marks.
We now move forwards again in time to this year. I once again started thinking about getting more info about Hans Eickemeyer. Various researchers on the web offer to do research into SS men. What kind of worried me was the rather elastic nature of some of the fees they charged and how thorough they would be?
My good friend Raymond G and I were chatting about SS research. He was confident that he would be able to find more info through his contacts. Raymond got in touch with a few friends of his in the research world in the hope that maybe some new info might come to light? One reply came back negative, but another reply came back to say that he had found Eickemeyer's SS file in the US Archives. As Raymond was having a load of research done in the archives he very kindly tagged my research onto his bill
I should now mention that Raymond had employed our very own Mike C.
http://www.westmorelandresearch.org/
Initially it was thought that his file was 17 pages long, but his RuSHA file also was discovered and this contained another 60 pages plus 3 photographs!
I will start the story back in 1991. The local Nottingham Evening Post newspaper had a small ad from a guy selling a black Allgemine SS tunic. I called him up and arranged to visit him to look at the jacket at his home in the city. I was dissappointed to find that the jacket was stripped of all insignia and had also suffered from post war alterations. Given the price of £230, I quickly passed on it. However, I asked if he had anything else for sale? He produced a 1933 pattern SS dagger. This I was impressed with and a deal was done with me paying £350 for it. One aspect I really liked about the dagger was the fact that it was serial numbered. I had already had some sucess with researching a 1936 pattern dagger in my collection so I hoped that I would find out the history of this new dagger too.
I wrote off to the Berlin Document Centre and in Jan of 1992 I got a reply. They had been very helpful with my previous research. I was dissappointed with their one line reply of:
"Dear Mr Stevenson, we have recieved your recent letter. Unfortunately we are not in a position to be of assistance."
Oh well I though, the guy must have been an NCO or enlisted man and so there must be no records available. Never mind it was worth a try and I still had a nice dagger to show for it.
We now fast forward to December 2000. I thought that I would have another go at finding out about this dagger. With the help of several internet friends, Gerard Stezelberger and Bernie Brule and Mike Miller, a name was come up with! SS Hauptsturmfuhrer Hans Eickemeyer. The small amount of info gleaned was taken from the July 1944 SS Officers Dienstalterliste. So he was an Officer after all.... I now had the date of his last promotion, 1.4.42, and his date of birth 23.06.1908 plus his last posting as a Staff Officer in the V SS Volunteer Mountain Korps.
I now wrote off to the Bundesarchive, but all I got was a copy of his entry in a 1987 reprinted copy of the 44 list. So sadly no new info there.
Have a look at the pic of the serial number. The order from Himmler for SS men to apply their serial number to their dagger was a shortlived one, so not all daggers are so marked. Eickemeyer had his number very neatly engraved. This is in sharp contrast to my other dagger which was very crudely die stamped with the owners initials and serial number. Another pic shows the serial number plus the admin group marking and makers marks.
We now move forwards again in time to this year. I once again started thinking about getting more info about Hans Eickemeyer. Various researchers on the web offer to do research into SS men. What kind of worried me was the rather elastic nature of some of the fees they charged and how thorough they would be?
My good friend Raymond G and I were chatting about SS research. He was confident that he would be able to find more info through his contacts. Raymond got in touch with a few friends of his in the research world in the hope that maybe some new info might come to light? One reply came back negative, but another reply came back to say that he had found Eickemeyer's SS file in the US Archives. As Raymond was having a load of research done in the archives he very kindly tagged my research onto his bill
I should now mention that Raymond had employed our very own Mike C.
http://www.westmorelandresearch.org/
Initially it was thought that his file was 17 pages long, but his RuSHA file also was discovered and this contained another 60 pages plus 3 photographs!