Imperial Austrian Medal Bar for Review

[Michaelauer21]

My friend found the original sales receipt for this bar. He purchased it 8/13/1982! A little farther back in time than he remembered.

Thank you for the additional information. Best, Mike

[stevenn]

Imp KuK medal bar review

It is possible that this soldier came out of WW1 as an officer, but had been an NCO when the war started. A KuK officer had to learn the language of his regiment. Remembering that the Austro-Hungarian Empire had many ethnic groups in it and regiments came from all these groups. Often officers came from, or owned property in one of these foreign regions and knew some of the language. The senior NCOs were native speakers of their region's language and knew German as well. As the multilingual officers were killed it became increasingly difficult to replace them, so the senior NCOs were promoted to being officers. I know of this happening in my family as well as in a friend's. Both families were ethnic German from Galicia.
Why Sudatin medal? Chances are that he was from that area of the Austro-Hun. Empire ,or very close to it, and spoke Czech and German as he my have been one of the German minority.