Order of Victory locations!

[chen]

Credit Gettyimage for the 1st photo. These two pictures look the same but somehow the medals are different.

[ironhrt15]

You can actually see where they blacked out the lower worn orders from the gaps in his belt. Anyone have any idea why this would be done? I sort of reminds me of Stalin removing people from photos.

[Wild Card]

“Blacking out” or removing people and objects from pictures became something of an art form under Stalin’s regime. There is an excellent book titled “The Commissar Vanishes” by David King that addresses and illustrates this practice.

Don’t forget, when Beria became a “non person” The Great Soviet Encyclopedia suddenly had to come up with pages of minutia on the Bering Sea to fill the unexpectedly created gap.

[Mathomhaus]

Achtung, I really don't the see point in placing fakes at important Museums and exhibits. Can you give me some proof of that?
If that's the case, so thank you for the info.

Regards,
Sepp

For the record, I've visited museums in Russia and seen a number of displays that featured Orders of Victory, some attributed to specific Soviet marshalls, and I have no doubt that most of the Orders on display were copies. It is simply a matter of sound museum practice: continuing to display top quality Soviet era copies in your cases just gives you an extra line of security.

The British have sometimes done the same thing with Victoria Crosses. I've seen regimental museums where the VCs on display were excellent copies. Sometimes there was a sign indicating that the crosses were replaced, sometimes not. I met the man who was the curator of the The South Lancashire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's Volunteers) regimental museum back in the late 80s and he told me that at one point his museum had been broken into and at least one VC group had been stolen. When I expressed shock, he gave me a sly smile and said that I shouldn't worry - that all of the VCs out on display were replicas.

Regards

[ironhrt15]

I hate to comment on my own comment, but I was thinking about it last night at work. Are all those orders that were blacked out from foreign countries? Meaning there is a full photo with all his orders and a sanitized pure Soviet one?

[Bill D.]

I hate to comment on my own comment, but I was thinking about it last night at work. Are all those orders that were blacked out from foreign countries? Meaning there is a full photo with all his orders and a sanitized pure Soviet one?

It looks that way.
I think the problem was not that they were foreign awards; I think that the problem was that some of the foreign awards were from western countries that were no longer allies. In fact, it may be that at the time that the photograph was taken (or not long afterwards) several of the countries who are represented by those awards (The United States, France & Belgium) were now members of NATO.

[Wild Card]

Photos of the 22 June 1945 Victory Day parade show Soviet military personnel of all ranks proudly wearing decorations from the USA, Britain and France. Relative to this photo, Marshal Konev received his third Lenin, which is absent in the picture, on 27 December 1947; so we have the time frame for the original photo.

Along this line, I once heard that while recipients of foreign awards were allowed to keep the actual decorations, the award documents were to be turned over (for safekeeping?) to the authorities. Does anyone else have any knowledge of this policy?

[Bill D.]

The photo may have originally dated from the immediate post-war period, but the edited photo was likely a later modification during the Cold War.

As an aside, there were a significant number of Soviet awards made to American officers, but I have seen very, very few photographs that depict the Americans wearing those awards or even the ribbons for the decorations. There is a well known photo of Patton at the end of the war wearing all of his medals and decorations. In this photo he can be seen wearing the Order of Kutuzov, first class. There is a photo here on the Forum of one of Dwight Eisenhower's uniforms on which he wore all of the ribbons for his awards, and the ribbon array includes the Order of Victory. I own an original World War II photograph that shows an American officer wearing a Soviet Guards badge on his Ike jacket. I know that there is also a photograph of the actress Marlene Dietrich, wearing an officer-style US uniform, and wearing a Guards badge on the jacket. But aside from these examples I don't recall seeing any other photos of Soviet awards being worn by Americans. Again, I suspect that this had to do with the rapid falling out between the United States and the Soviet Union in the post-war period.

It is also my understanding that a Soviet officer or soldier who received an American decoration did indeed keep the medal, but the award documentation went into a file or archive. A number of years ago there were quite a few examples of the award documents for the award of various grades of the Legion of Merit to Soviet officers that appeared on the market. These consisted of the color award document for the decoration as well as a letter, on White House stationary, that set forth the citation. Both the award document and the letter bore original signatures of President Truman, and the document also bore an original signature of the Secretary of War. These documents always had penciled numerical notations in the upper corners which, I assumed, referred to the appropriate archive file number in which the documents had been kept. They were always in near-perfect condition.

[Bill D.]

Here is a rather poor copy of the Patton photograph. On a clear copy it can be readily seen that he is wearing the Kutuzov Order on his upper right breast next to the edge of the blue sash.

[chen]

Any idea which class is this Kutuzov Order? Can not tell from this photo.

[GREIF]

Any idea which class is this Kutuzov Order? Can not tell from this photo.

Difficult to say on this photo but it seems that Patton has received this Order .

[Bill D.]

Patton's biographical information as to his awards and decorations states that it was Kutuzov, first class.

[GREIF]

Patton's biographical information as to his awards and decorations states that it was Kutuzov, first class.

Absolutely :

http://www.pattonhq.com/medals.html