An Air Gunner Badge Award Document; Unqualified Air Gunner Badge Recipient

A certificate, measuring 210x297mm, fine condition with most of the vertical folding crease having come apart, two small holes along the crease, some fraying, and additional horizontal folding creases. It states that Oberleutnant (Senior Lieutenant) Walter Stipproweit was awarded the Air Gunner Badge without Lightning. The document is dated to November 9, 1944 and carries a facsimile of the Supreme Commander of Aerial Fleet 10, General der Flieger Hans-Georg von Seidel (1891–1955), a recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the War Merit Cross. It is signed in green ink by a Major, his name could be Nagler.

Footnote: Oberleutnant Walter Stipproweit is a known recipient of the very rare Unqualified Air Gunner Badge (Fliegerschützenabzeichen mit Schwarzem Kreuz), which he was awarded on June 30, 1944. This decoration was awarded to soldiers acting in the capacity of gunners. Interestingly, gunners were usually of low rank. The fact that an Oberleutnant was awarded the badge may suggest that Stipproweit had served in a different Luftwaffe branch before being transferred to the Flight branch, which at the end of the war would have been desperately looking for any soldier to man the planes.