Red Star,0133706,Gun Commander,13th Motorised Brigade,Har'kov-Kursk 1943

[godefroy]

I was wondering how German treat capture soviet orders ? Do they keep them as a souvenir, trophy ??? Any experience in that matter?[/QUOTE]

[Bill Garvy]

Originally Posted by godefroy

I have found interesting information about collecting trophy's by Germans.
This articel is about ground dug found in German graves.

Орден Красной Звезды № 196785

Some English translation would be good,

Order of the Red Star № 196785

In the Hall of Military Glory of Veliky Novgorod there are several awards from the times of the Great Patriotic War. They are part of the exposition of the exhibition “Unique finds of the expedition “Valley”. All awards at different times were found on the fields of past battles by search engines, and each has its own particular fate, like the person to whom it belonged. We will talk about each in the hope that there will be relatives of the owner of the award, and it can be transferred to the rightful owners.

Order of the Red Star number 196785 was not found on the chest of our deceased fighter. He was found in a German grave. Last year, the German People’s Union for the Care of Military Graves near the village of Kryuki, Ostrovsky District, Pskov Region, transferred a German military burial. Among those who helped the Germans to carry out the exhumation, were dolinschiki. Here is one of the buried Germans and found the Soviet order. It seems that he robbed our deceased on the battlefield, picked him up as a trophy or souvenir. It is not good for our military order to lie among the remains of the invaders, the searchers thought and betrayed it for storage in the Hall of Military Glory of Veliky Novgorod.

It was possible to establish that this order on August 3, 1943, was awarded to the guard by senior sergeant Andreev Viktor Sergeevich, born in 1918, called up for military service in 1936 from Voroshilovgrad. In the award list for the assistant commander of a platoon of the 2nd rifle company of the 1st rifle battalion of the 63rd Guards rifle regiment of the 23rd GMS Andreeva V. S. stated: “On the front of the Patriotic War since 1941. In the battles for the Socialist Homeland has 3 wounds, 2 times wounded. He participated in battles on the Karelian front, the South-Western and North-Western fronts. He has 15 destroyed German soldiers and officers on his account, he personally blew up the tank and the bunker, in the group with his comrades they brought one “language”.

Two weeks after the signing of the award order, on August 18, 1943, the guard sergeant Viktor Sergeevich Andreev would die in battle and be buried in a mass grave in the village of Sambatovo in the Poddorsky District of the Novgorod Region (in 1943 - Leningrad). The name of the division’s losses includes the address of Father Andreev - Voroshilovgrad, column head. "OR" ("Voroshilovgrad plant named after the October Revolution -"VZOR"), 18, ap.8. Relatives of V. S. Andreev have not yet been found.