Axis Barbarossa medal - Sudetenland

[HVK]

Thank you very much for your kind answers - this has been very informative. The medal is in my collection and it is therefore nice to know more about it.

[sitges1990]

I am with you HVK, I think it's a great looking award. I have never seen this medal before either. If the estimate of 40,000 of these being made is correct, that is about the same as the Spanish Blue Division medal, of which about 46,000 were made. You quite frequently see Blue Division medals. I have a sneaking suspicion that many soldiers who won this award, did not survive the war, and the medals are buried with their bones. The Spaniards did not suffer such catastrophic losses.

Jay

[HVK]

@Stinges: I guess you are right - unfortunately... This exact medal has eigther suffered damage from pressure from an explosion or has been run over by a car or something. It was found as I said in the top soil - ín a mall defense position by the road in the Halbe area. In the same area I did find parts from 4 gasmasks, one gasmask beholder and a trench hole by 1 x ½ meter and 3/4 meter deep. This hole was full (!!!) of 8x33 cartridges - I have never seen that many. They were off cource rotted away. And on ther bottem of the hole were alocking cam for a MG-42. Nothing more.

But there were other signals that I did not did - I did only dig the top soil, so I will come back in the near future... The funny thing about this position is that I did just drive in my car, park it, starte looking and after 10min I did find the medal... Pure luck.... :-)

[HVK]

Actually I did have a lot of nice pictures from this trip - but as usual no back up of my laptop And one night I was using my Laptop and placed it on my desk.... I must admit that my desk was a little messy; books, newspaper and "stuff".... Then I placed my laptop on the desk and I heard a loud "CLANK".... !! What the.... !!!

Yes you guessed it right.... I had found my large 130 kilo dredge magnet - and is had sucked itself to the hard disc drive of my laptop....

The disk did not survive however.....

I did tell quite another story to the IT department at work....

[sitges1990]

HVK, that is a horror story. I would have had a heart attack., if I fryed my computer. Really nice medal and I love the fact you are the one that dug it out. Fantastic piece for a collection. I love the relic stuff, it truely speaks to you!

Take care,
Jay

[ludovit1]

Maybe someone can translate the name of the decoration from the document?

Hi, the document says:

Slovak Republic
Mr. Flying Officer (equivalent from Slovak) Vladimir Krisko
I present you
Commemorative Badge
1st Grade
for field campaign against the Soviet Union
in year 1943
In Bratislava (that is capital of Slovakia) Sept. 3, 1943
Number: 268803-43 Minister of National Defense: gen. F. Čatloš (I had to look this up...)

[Adrian]

Werlcome to the forum ludovit and thank you for your translation. Are you a Czech speaker?

[stuka f]

Actually I did have a lot of nice pictures from this trip - but as usual no back up of my laptop And one night I was using my Laptop and placed it on my desk.... I must admit that my desk was a little messy; books, newspaper and "stuff".... Then I placed my laptop on the desk and I heard a loud "CLANK".... !! What the.... !!!

Yes you guessed it right.... I had found my large 130 kilo dredge magnet - and is had sucked itself to the hard disc drive of my laptop....

The disk did not survive however.....

I did tell quite another story to the IT department at work....

Thanks for showing, never saw or heard about that medal before!!
Sad story abot the magnet!!
Ever had you fingers stuck between two such magnets?? ;-)
Dangerous toys they are!!
cheers
|<ris

[ludovit1]

It's been a while. Just looked at this again. Yes, I understand Slovak and Czech (read/write).
After seeing this it prompted me to find one and I did and have one in my collection now. It's a very nice badge.

[HVK]

Do you know how many medals were issued? Mine is a silver version which should have been issued to front line units ? Can I see a picture of yours?