Since the MMJO is three times rarer than a Pour le Merite, I'd stay with a buttonhole ribbon!
The book is "Virtuti Pro Patria: Der königlich bayerische Militär-Max-Joseph-Orden, Kriegstaten und Ehrenbuch 1914-1918," published by the MMJO holders association in Munich, 1966. I've got it, of course.
There may be books on Ritter von Niedermayer's WW1 exploits in German and English, but I can't think of any titles I've seen, beyond mentions in the Bund der Asienkämpfer magazines 1920s-30s.
Niedermayer joined the Bavarian army as an officer candidate in Field Artillery Regiment 10 on 15.7.05. Leutnant 8.3.07. A precocious military-political traveller, he was off on an expedition through Persia, Russia, and India on leave from 1912-14. Promoted Oberleutnant 7.1.14 and Hauptmann 17.8.16.
Originally a deputy battery commander in Bav Feldart Rgt 10, it was soon realized that his special background suited him to more unusual postings in the war, and he was dispatched back to Persia at the end of 1914. (He was technically attached to the General Staff from 1917, but apparently without ever going through the Staff courses, based solely on his unusual background experience in the Middle East.) In 1915 he was in Mesopotamia and into Afghanistan, and began his legendary exploits as "the German Lawrence" wandering about far in the rear, attempting to bring in neutral Persia and Afghanistan on the side of the Central Powers.
For his actions in the rear of Russian Turkistan, breaking through the Russian lines at Hamadan with valuable information, he was awarded the MMJO and personal lifetime nobility as "Ritter von" Niedermayer to date 5 September 1916.
In 1917 he perambulated through western Persia, Iraq, Palestine, and led a counter-force against Lawrence to Tafile on the Hejaz rail line.
Reaching the Persian Gulf, Ritter von Niedermayer's "private expeditionary force" of 140 men in local dress and 236 pack animals eventually regained the Turkish lines with only 37 men (among them his sidekick, the German Consul and political officer Wasmuss--who I believe later wrote memoirs). Niedermayer is given some credit for convincing the Afghans to eventually take on the British--but only in 1919, after all the Germans were gone!
Like his "opposite number" Lawrence, Niedermayer tied down vast numbers of enemy troops fruitlessly seeking him across vast areas, wild goose chases that accomplished as much as entire divisions, without the cost or risk.
Although sought for political arrest by the British at the end of the war, he slipped through and got safely back to Germany, participating in the Freikorps Epp liberation of Munich from the Reds in May 1919. Attending classes at the University of Munich, Ritter von Niedermayer remained in the army until 1921, serving as an Adjutant of the Reichswehrminister and on the liaison staff with the Allied Armistice Commission. He received the brevet rank of Major, Retired in 1922.
According to his VPP biography, from 1921-31 he was "employed by the armed forces on special missions abroad," i.e. for "Black Reichswehr" illegal training, and on Abwehr business. From 1928 to 1932 he was director of cooperative training in Russia for flying, armor, and chemical weapons development--and THAT is what got him (and all the other German personnel involved) in post-WW2 trouble with the Soviets: Stalin wanted no "witnesses," having purged most of his own military who were involved 1937-38.
He was reactivated nominally 1932-33 (German rearmament started BEFORE Hitler took power), being discharged as an Oberstleutnant with seniority of 1 October 1932.
He taught "Defense Geography" as a Professor at the University of Berlin 1933-39, from 1937 as Director of the Institute for General Military Studies.
Reactivated for WW2 with rank of a recalled ("(E)") Oberst, seniority 1.10.38, he was placed on the active list in 1942 and commissioned Generalmajor 1 September 1942. You already know about his service as CO of the 162nd Turkistan Division. On 21 May 1944 he was named Commander of all "East Troops" under control of OB West.
He was NOT-- Kersten's wild pubescent "recollections" to the contrary, involved in the 20 July 1944 plot to kill Hitler--
what he was arrested for (on charge of "defeatism") was an unwise comment to his staff in August 1944 that following the Soviet summer offensive and the Allied landings in Normandy, there was NOW utterly no hope for Germany to salvage anything from the war. He was arrested and placed in the military fortress prison at Torgau, where virtually all the "anti-Nazi" prisoners-- whether involved in 20 July or not, were summarily executed in April 1945 out of simple revenge and malice.
Ritter von Niedermayer survived that, against all the odds, and did, apparently,
voluntarily place himself in Soviet hands, apparently in the naive belief that his earlier "collaboration" in the 1920s would make him of use in the post-war "peace process." He had, apparently, "forgotten" that all his Soviet co-workers already had been shot before the war even started. Stalin wanted no evidence of this inconvenient proof of joint military work (funny, wasn't it, that nobody ever mentioned the JOINT German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 that started the war.... hmmmmmmmm......)
Ritter von Niedermayer died in Vladimir prison of abuse and hopelessness. Any suggestion that he was EVER a "Soviet agent" or an active ember of the German Resistance is romanticized fantasy. His REAL adventures were "Hollywood" enough!
Info:Maj.Gen. Oskar Ritter von Neidermeyer
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