soviet medal bar with czarist awards?

[Daniel Krause]

This might be interesting.

General Sacher Wydrigan is wearing a long SOVIET medal bar,
a second row with what looks very much like 3 czarist St.George crosses and 4 czarist St.George- medals and finally 3 polish awards.

I know in WW2 the soviets remembered their own history and re- invited shoulder boards in the old czarist style, used the old czarist pentagonal bars for the medals, even used the St. Georges ribbon for the Order of Glory. But how comes that even the old bravery awards were worn? I know a lot of soviet soldiers got medals in the old czarist times, but I have never seen then in wear after the revolution in 1918!

Rick or every other soviet expert, do You know more about that?

Best greetings

Daniel

[Daniel Krause]

sorry for the bad newspaper scan,
here is a closeup of the medal bars:

[Rick Research]

They must have SHOT him immediately after the photo was taken!!!!!!!

[Daniel Krause]

I wouldn´t think so. Even in the memoires of some old generals, they are proudly mentioning their St.Georges crosses and other bravery decorations. (for example Marshal Shukov as czarist sergeant had 2 St.George crosses, Marshal Shaposhnikov Stanne and Stanilaus orders with swords)

Best regards

Daniel

[Ville Ruokonen]

Baffling indeed. I would have guessed that before 1942 wearing Czarist awards was tantamount to inviting in the firing squad, so I speculate that this is a photo from during or after the Great Patriotic War. Spiess, you didn't mention the date for the photo, did you?

As I recall, the Red Army gained a great deal of latitude from the Communists after the war, what with adopting czarist-style uniforms and so forth. The period between 1945-1949 was a particular 'state of grace' for the Soviet Army when they practically got anything they wanted (witness the IS-8 tank, a ridiculous design at best).

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FYI, the only other country to have an officer corps with substantial amounts of Czarist awards (you guessed it, Finland), did not actually forbid wearing Russian pre-1917 awards; instead, it became a point of contention between the former czarist army officers and the German-trained Jäger officers. The latter and people with strong nationalist sentiment disapproved of wearing czarist awards, whereas the former supported it and so-called "old Finns" (political moderates) condoned it.

The issue became moot after the so-called "officer purge" of the late twenties and the national unification and anticipation of a great-power conflict of the late thirties. Marshal Mannerheim led the way by proudly wearing his Cross of St. George IV class.

After WWII, Finland, the only country to do so until 1957, refrained from banning the wearing of German awards. However, not many officers (i.e. none) wore their EKs or DKs after the war.

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