Imperial Russia Czarist or Awaloff Award?

[Robin Lumsden]

I know next to nothing about Czarist/White Russian awards.

Can anyone tell me what this little enamelled miniature is, please?

It's part of a German Freikorps group.

[Robin Lumsden]

Here's the back......the one in the middle.

[NavyFCO]

Robin:

That's the Order of Saint Anne (or Anna, depending on who is calling it what) 4th Class. Here's a link to it on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Saint_Anna

Can you shoot a scan of the whole set? Looks fascinating! Do you know anything about the vet?

Dave

[GeorgeCL]

[attachmentid=55773]Yes Daves correct,

St Anna 4th class for NON christians.

George

Christian award left

NON Christian right

Edited October 2, 2006 by GeorgeCL

[Robin Lumsden]

Dave & George.

Many thanks to you both. Here's the full thing.......I know nothing about the recipient other than that he must have served with the Iron Division and Awaloff's troops in the Baltic.

[Robin Lumsden]

Here's the back.

Thanks again to you both.

[Ed_Haynes]

Interesting, a Jewish Freikorps veteran??

Edited October 2, 2006 by Ed_Haynes

[NavyFCO]

Very cool!

I own Avalov's personal flag...

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=4544

[Robin Lumsden]

Interesting, a Jewish Freikorps veteran??

Could well have been. There were a lot of Jews in the imperial German army.

[Ed_Haynes]

Could well have been. There were a lot of Jews in the imperial German army.

Of course, but in Freikorps?

[Robin Lumsden]

Very cool!

I own Avalov's personal flag...

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=4544

A wonderful standard!

(Would have been even better with a skull, though!)

[Robin Lumsden]

Of course, but in Freikorps?

Yes. I don't see why not. Unusual, but not impossible. Even Hitler was 'sympathetic' to Jews who had won the Iron Cross in the Great War.

[GeorgeCL]

I dont understand why this is a jewish set?

George

[Ed_Haynes]

Non-Christian. HIGHLY unlikely a Muslim = Jew??

Assuming, of course, the St. A is original and correct.

Edited October 3, 2006 by Ed_Haynes

[Robin Lumsden]

I dont understand why this is a jewish set?

George

That's my thoughts too. I don't know much about Russian awards, but I would have thought that 'non-Christian' meant just that.........most of these Freikorps types were nihilists!

In any event, isn't it likely that the White Russian army distributed these Czarist awards without too much deference to their originally intended purpose? I would have thought that one Russian trinket would have been much like another so far as a German mercenary was concerned.

[GeorgeCL]

I would guess most likely a muslim.

But I dont know much about the freikorps

George

Edited October 3, 2006 by GeorgeCL

[Ed_Haynes]

A Muslim in the Freikorps? I'd think that would have been even more illogical and implausible than a Jew???!!!

[peter monahan]

... I would have thought that 'non-Christian' meant just that.........most of these Freikorps types were nihilists!

Robin

I think you'd find that there were exactly two types and no "other", so regardless personal beliefs/philosophy one qualified for "Christian" (the vast majority) or "Non -C". As Ed says, there were many Jews in the Imperial Army and the subsequent antics of Adolf et al would not necessarily have dissuaded a super-nationalistic (Jewish) veteran from joining a FreiKorp unit.

On a related (sorta) note: when my father was a starving graduate student in 1950 he was paid to collect census data for the Cdn government. Under "Religion" the choices were (in no particular order): Catholic, Jew, Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran. No "Muslim", Sikh, Buddhist, jain and definitely no "None of the above" ! One was obliged by law to answer all questions and therefore, by inference, to choose one of those categories! Strange old world!

Peter

[Robin Lumsden]

Robin

I think you'd find that there were exactly two types and no "other", so regardless personal beliefs/philosophy one qualified for "Christian" (the vast majority) or "Non -C".

Peter

Exactly the point I was trying to make!

[NavyFCO]

Isn't there the possibility though that by the time that Avalov was issuing out these awards (or someone else in the White government) the "Christian" and "non-Christian" categories had been washed away from the award? Avalov himself was a real dirtbag, who wasn't really royalty (he was self-proclaimed as part of the Romanov family, but really wasn't) and if this medal group was truly from a Friekorps soldier who was given these awards by Avalov's forces, then the chance of them actually taking the time to determine the religion of a person is quite doubtful.

Of course, that's just my personal opinion from the small bit I know about Avalov and his forces.

Dave

[Robin Lumsden]

I was looking through Woolley's excellent Freikorps book this morning and had a closer look at the photo of Berthold's adjutant.......Hauptmann Phillip, in his police uniform.

The medal group he is wearing has all four of the awards above in full size (along with a few others). His Order of St. Anne is the Christian variety. So at least it's confirmation that the St. Anne awards were given to the Freikorps of the Iron Division.

[Ramblinfarms]

This is a very interesting thread Gentlemen. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[Guest Rick Research]

These VERY minis are, of course, NOT anything that were issued. They were bought by the recipient himself, undoubtedly in the 1920s+.

Assuming that a German militaria effects retailer chose the correct Teeny Tiny is more than I'd credit the average one with! Strange and exotic was very "close enough ... nobody will notice" quite a lot of the time. And if an opportunity arose to clear out some "dead stock" that had been lying around unwanted Since Forever....

Bandmaster-Colonel-General-Prince Bermont-Avalov played particularly fast and loose with decorations-- I suspect because he "issued" them only on paper. There are many wildly inappropriate awards and grades of awards to his German allies:

[attachmentid=56352]

FILING department administrative 2nd Lieutenant Knothe was, God love him, "Chairman" of the Iron Division's quartermaster stores department. As such, he received BOTH the Order of Saint Anna 3rd Class with Swords AND the Order of Saint Stanislaus 2nd Class (but without swords). YIKES!!!!!!! After some 41 years of bureaucratic drudgery, Herr Knothe arrived at the pinnacle of his career in 1938 as a FILING department Amtsrat ("Senior Major" had any such rank actually existed) in the OKW. By that time, the giggling and pointing would no doubt have led him to quietly stop wearing his White Russian gongs--though he probably got away with what was almost certainly a "de facto" rather than "de jure" EK1.

This particular grade of Saint Anna on the chain was, if I remember correctly, supposed to be worn as a hilt device on a sword with a "Portepee" in the Order's ribbon colors. I don't believe it was ever worn as a medal bar award by the Russians-- regardless of what a Weimar German might come up with! (Think of all those WW1 Turkish War Medal pinback stars slapped wrongly onto medal bars....)

The Iron Division was a GERMAN unit, so what you've got there is a minis group to a German with White Russian awards, not an emigr? from Russia with German awards.

Ergo, 1919-- IF even the correct Teeny Tiny at all, German-Jewish rather than "Russian"-Muslim.

Border Freikorps had virtually nothing to do with the interior street brawling variety, Ed. Two completely different sorts of volunteers. While "Imperialist," the border types were not "political" generally except in a nationalist sense.

This is a particularly nice find, since miniatures of these strange awards are even harder to find than the full size.

[Ramblinfarms]

Trite comment, but Rick, you never cease to amaze me with the scope and depth of your knowledge! All of us on this Forum are wiser and more knowledgeable collectors thanks to your valuable input. Again trite, but Thank you for sharing.

Again, what an interesting thread!

Chris

[Robin Lumsden]

Thanks Rick. These minis are on eBay at the moment......last couple of hours of the auction and the bids are rocketing.