Soviet Propaganda and award citations

[Bryan]

I was just wondering if you think that many of the citations we can get while researching an award could be exaggerated only to fulfill propaganda issues or for other reasons. I mean we can get a citation where it says the soldier in question had killed 20 German fascists, but he might only have killed 2 on that day. Do you think that is something that happens very often or just sometimes?

I?d like to know your opinion on this issue.

[JimZ]

Mmmm.... interesting! And while your answering Soviet...... to what extent was the awarding of orders and the stories behind them published in the papers.... and if some where which of the higher orders were worthy of this?

Jim

[NavyFCO]

I was just wondering if you think that many of the citations we can get while researching an award could be exaggerated only to fulfill propaganda issues or for other reasons. I mean we can get a citation where it says the soldier in question had killed 20 German fascists, but he might only have killed 2 on that day. Do you think that is something that happens very often or just sometimes?

I?d like to know your opinion on this issue.

I don't think they were intentional propaganda because most low soldier awards (Glory 3rd, Red Star, etc.) never even left the unit. Undoubtedly the majority of unit commanders knew what they're units were involved in with regard to combat (look at the number of commanders KIA during the war in front line combat) so there wasn't a need to inflate numbers to impress the chain of command.

I personally think that there was a considerable amount of "inflation" of killed numbers simply because they were estimates and it was safer to estimate on the high side than on the low side (why lose credit for what casualties you MIGHT have inflicted?) I have always thought it interesting how, for example, an artillery unit could claim "up to one battalion of enemy soldiers were wiped out" when they obviously weren't out there counting the dead bodies, or for that matter, with artillery, many of their victims were either buried under rubble or unidentifiable parts and pieces so there was no way that they could know that they wiped out a battalion, or even a company for that matter. Even beyond that, even if they COULD count the number of Germans killed, was it a full strength company or battalion? Or was it half strength? They couldn't know the actual strength of the German unit, so they technically couldn't accept credit for wiping out an entire unit.

All that said though, it was probably more accepted to put in a citation that they killed "up to a company of facists" than what they could possibly confirm by actual body count.

Was it done for propaganda? No. Was it the most practical way of writing citations in a combat environment? Probably.

Dave

[NavyFCO]

Mmmm.... interesting! And while your answering Soviet...... to what extent was the awarding of orders and the stories behind them published in the papers.... and if some where which of the higher orders were worthy of this?

Jim

I don't think that many of the lower awards were published verbatim in papers. I believe the normal case is that a reporter (probably a member of the political staff) would take the story of the action and that would be published, not so much the actual citation itself. This might not have been the case with regard to the higher citations that had to go to the Front staff or to Moscow for final approval - those may have actually ended up released (as an excerpt format, undoubtedly and not the actual citation) to the press for publishing.

I have seen several examples of high award citations which state that the person's deeds had been published "along the Front" or in other sources, so there was undoubtedly a system for that which was independent of award citation writing.

Perhaps some of the Russian members who have read through wartime newpapers (esp the big ones like Pravda) could enlighten us further.

Dave

[Bryan]

What I want to express does not only concern the number of Germans killed in action, but I'd like to know if inflated feats were often written on award citations. I don?t think these were really made for propaganda only. Maybe I didn't express myself very clearly. May be the citations were written on the high side in order to get an advancement or simply to fulfill the orders given by the highest commandment.

For sure there might have been issues that were used for propaganda, like the posthumous HSU to Alexander Matrosov. Was he a real hero or was the story around him made up?

However my question doesn?t refer to this kind of feats, but more to the common feats.

[Christian Zulus]

For sure there might have been issues that were used for propaganda, like the posthumous HSU to Alexander Matrosov. Was he a real hero or was the story around him made up?

Dear Bryan,

we are coming rather close to a "revisionist"-discussion .

Maybe comrade Gagarin had never visited the orbit and the story around him was made up?

Maybe the majority of Nazi-soldiers died of influenza, committed suicide or had been killed by US-bombs?

Maybe you received an Glory just for shooting at 1 (one) Nazi-soldier? 3 shots = 1 Cavalier of Glory .

Matrosov had not been a "propaganda-fake" - and there were a lot of heros like Matrosov in the GPW .

The soldiers & officers of the Red Army did a great job in WW II - and that is a fact .

Best regards

Christian

[Bryan]

Very objective Christian!

[Christian Zulus]

Very objective Christian!

Dear Bryan,

don't take my postings too literally, when they are ment metaphorically .

Dave's approach is right: Propaganda would make not so much sense. The noted "20 killed Hitlerites" may result in actually 25 killed German soldiers or 15 killed German soldiers, but if you would draw a "balance-sheet" of all citiations, they citated quotas will somehow correspond to the actual historic reality, I assume.

The Red Army did a hard job to liberate Europe (and the Asian continent) .

Best regards

Christian

Edited February 9, 2007 by Christian Zulus

[Christian Zulus]

HSU Alexander Matrosov

Gentlemen,

here are 3 links - the first in English and the rest in Russian language - with further informations about HSU Alexander Matrosov:

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

http://www.warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=597

http://www.peoples.ru/military/hero/matrosov/index.html

Best regards

Christian

[Ed_Haynes]

To get us back on, or even "toward", the topic, I suspect all nations, in times of war, exaggerate and "stretch" when it comes to writing up awards recommendations. Anyone who writes up someone else for an award obviously wants to see them get that award. And, as anyone over the age of six knows, not everyone who deserves awards gets them, and not all who get them deserve them; whining aside, this is just the way the system works, always has, always will. Most awards recommendations are intended for internal, contemporaneous, bureaucratic circulation only and were not intended to be "propaganda" (a slippery value-laden term of undetermined meaning). This is why it is so difficult for a researcher to access recommendations; they were never intended to be public documents. In extraordinary cases of heroism, where the individual was later marked (by the government) to be put forward to the public, through the media, as a model for emulation, the public relations guys get to work their "special magic" on the recommendation to dress it up for public consumption. And this may entail adding a final zero onto the body count or exggerating in other ways as the internal recommendation becomes a press release. None of this should detract from the real heroism that often lies behind these accounts, but when the deeds of a hero are repackaged to motovate the public during time of war, some "marketing spin" always takes place. For recent examples, glance at the Medal of Honor or Victoria Cross recommendations coming out of Iraq.

[Guest Rick Research]

Ed makes excellent points. Look at how many citations we see come back that are downgraded as to what the recipient finally got--

the "higher ups" (and this was probably true back under Caesar's legions) naturally assume a bit of hyperbole and that lower levels "over recommended" expecting to get cut back--

so that alas for the REAL guy who did EXACTLY what was written up, some clerk with shoulder boards somewhere sniffed and downplayed the "hype."

That's why a 1942 Red Star, say, "reads" like a 1944-45 Red Banner. By the end of the war, most decorations HAD been devalued--en masse if certainly not to specific individuals. By the end of the war, any officer without a Red Star was like his German counterpart without a 2nd Class Iron Cross-- but for a mere Comrade Ranker to actually get a Red Banner was STILL a marvelous thing indeed.

So the literary skill with which a recommendation was presented, the inclination of the vital lowest level recommender (was he an awards hog over-eager to make his command look good, or was he stingy in recognizing those under him?), and whether the "weary" higher echelon staffs "burned out" from processing huge numbers of awards after a major operation--or did they have the leisure to carefully consider individual awards in "quieter" times-- all enter into the arbitrary mix.

Just look at the absurdly huge number of Dnieper crossing Hero Stars compared to those made for all of WW2. An obvious political, propagandistic decision had been made to make a HUGE "deal" out of that, as a result of which "quotas" seem to have been attached all the way down the line that had a ripple effect for the remainder of the war.

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Rick,

true words and you are presenting historic facts .

I had been more difficult to get an RS in winter 1942 in Stalingrad, than an RB in spring 1945 in Berlin .

At a recent thread, I compared the mass-HSUs for Dnepr-crossing to the crossing of the Landwehrkanal in Berlin: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtop...st&p=147160 , where a heroic tank-commander did not receive his earned HSU.

Best regards

Christian

[Bryan]

All interesting points that you have brought guys. Thanks for this nice discussion!