Foreign Awards To Soviets.

[Dave]

And here's another photo. Of the 1000+ photos I have of officers in my collection, this is by far the best group of foreign awards that I have seen to a Soviet officer! (Incidentally, I was able to buy the group as well...) All five of these awards are Polish.
Enjoy!

--Dave

[Nota Bene]

Dave,

Welcome to the forum! According to my calculations you should have at least 2000 photos in your collection :)

An off topic photo, but quite interesting - a Soviet Naval Aviation technical service Major is wearing a polish (?) medal and a Medal for Liberation of Korea.

[kameli]

Order of the White Rose of Finland Grand Cross with chains (1919). That high order is given to over 100 foreign leaders: for example
- 3rd Reich Herman Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Heinrich Himmler, many II WW German generals
- France presidents Charles De Gaulle, Valery Giscard d´Estaing
- Queen Elisabeth in England
- and many others.

Also some soviet leaders got this order:

1. Nikolai Podgornyi (awarded 1969). In the picture he is wearing his order as visiting in Finland 1973. In the left there is Finland´s president Urho Kekkonen wearing some soviet orders.

Leonid Brezhnev. In the picture Brehnev gets his order in Moscow´s Kreml in the year 1976.

Soviet marshal Kliment Voroshilov had the order in 1955.

(picture: Helsingin Sanomat - newspaper December 2002 )

[otlichnik]

I am absolutely stunned that Brezhnev or any other Soviets would accept an award which had also been issued to Goring and Himmler. Were the Nazi awardees officially stripped of their awards at some point in time prior to 1955??

Shawn

[salyan]

Shawn... I agree with your comments, but then again.... Breshnev turn down an award?.... could that be blasphemy? ;) Dan

[Ed_Haynes]

Well, it must have been inescapable, given that the first model of the Collar of the Order of the White Rose had swastikas as a prominent part of the suspension for the cross and design of the chain. This was sanitized in 1963 (only!) to a stylised cluster of spruce branches, and I suspect we know which version Comrade Brezhnev got? But Voroshilov's would have still had swastikas! Oops!!

Ed Haynes

[kameli]

There were swastikas in Voroshilov´s order!!!

At first Voroshilov was not willing to take the order, but he "have" to because Finland´s president Paasikivi got the order of Lenin.

The swastikas were in use until 1963 when they were changed by president Kekkonen. The main reason was that president de Gaulle was very embarrassed about swastikas in his order.

It´s good to know for everyone: Finland´s swastikas have nothing to do with nazi´s swastikas. Swastika came to symbol of Finnish Army during our indenpendent war in 1918! Swastika was painted in the airplane which was a gift by swedish baron von Rosen and he used swastika as his own personal symbol.

Unfortunately our swastika is always messed to nazi´s swastika and after WW II we have stopped to use it in large scale. But all the way through the years and still today swastika is in use for exemple Finnish Air Force`s badges and flags.

And of course in the Order of the Cross of Liberty.
Jussi-Pekka

This is maybe a little bit out of subject, but there is an example swastikas still using in Finnish Air Force:

[otlichnik]

Jussi-Pekka,

Thanks for an interesting thread.

Just for the record, I don't thing there was anything wrong at all with those Soviets accepting the award. I am just surprised that they did, more given the fact of past recipeints than the Swastika design. But your explanation regarding Voroshilov's "struggle" was very interesting.

I wonder how often he wore it. From what I understand reading the Soviet regulations wearing foreign awards was always optional. Maybe he did not wear it much.

Shawn

[kameli]

Shawn,

I don´t know if he wore it, but I think we can be quite sure he didn´t !!!


Jussi-Pekka

[new world]

Interesting discussion about the swastika symbol.

Also - an obscure fact, but swastikas were one of the symbols of the new Soviet state shortly after the 1917 October revolution! Evidence of this can be seen, as swastikas were used on the first paper money of the Soviet Russia.

I'll post some scans of the Soviet banknotes with the swastikas if I can find one in my archive (I think that was denomination of 10,000 rubles). The design was introduced in 1918, the notes were in the circulation for short time and were later discontinued.