DDR DDR Medals

[Ed_Haynes]

Ed - Excellent! I've seen these medals in books, but have never seen one up close. Kevin

Thanks, Kevin. I was recently underbidder -- -- on Ewald Munschke's documented and spanged one (but not underbidder on all his medals -- watch a space near this one).

[ehrentitle]

Ed - I do have a ribbon bar that contains the Medaille f?r K?mpfer gegen Faschismus 1933-45. I found it interesting that it is placed first in front of the other NVA medals. I recall hearing that old Anti-Fascist fighters and communist concentration camp victims were revered in the DDR. Kevin

[Ed_Haynes]

Yes, according to the 1978 order of wearing, these were extremely high, ahead of the generic Ehrentitle series:

Karl-Mark-Orden

Held der DDR

Held der Arbeit

Stern der Volkerfreundschaft

Vaterlandischer Verdienstorden

Banner der Arbeit

Scharnhorst-Orden

Fur Verdienst um Volk und Vaterland

Bewaffenden Kampfen 1918-23

Kampfer gegen den Faschismus 1933-45

Hans Beimler

Clara Zetkin

etc.

(Bartel 3rd ed, p. 174)

Edited November 5, 2005 by Ed_Haynes

[Marcus H]

Kevin,

Please do post the Border Guards medal !!! Arh the 17 July St market, that still goes on to this day, I fequent there often each year, Sunday being the best day and then other markets in the former East. Even nipping to Dresden is worth it, for Third Reich and East German.

I don't have to many earlier medals mostly pins and badges, and just a few of the medals really.

Kr

Marcus

[ehrentitle]

Here is my early 1950s numbered Grenztruppen Medaille fue vorbildlichen Grenzdienst that I found in a flea market on West Berlin's 17 Juli Stra?e. It was in the bottom of a box full of junk insignia mostly from West Germany. It was also really nast looking, especially the soiled ribbon. So I had to break my rule of not cleaning medals and washed the ribbon and cleaned the layers of dirt and gunk off of the medal. Kevin

Edited November 5, 2005 by ehrentitle

[ehrentitle]

And reverse - The number is 3523.

Edited November 5, 2005 by ehrentitle

[ehrentitle]

And i can confirm the statement, the earlier, the better the quality. The threw out zillions of these medals, after the wall was gone already and you could buy the most of them on German ebay. Its really hard to find some earlier issues nowadays, and if, they often go for a crazy prices.

Here is a photo to reinforce Gerd's comment - Medaille der Waffenbrudershaft, Silber - The older one that I purchased in Berlin is on the left and the newer one I purchased on E-bay on the right.

Edited November 5, 2005 by ehrentitle

[ehrentitle]

Reverse - Notice the difference in the pin closure.

Edited November 5, 2005 by ehrentitle

[ehrentitle]

There's not alot of reference on these medals, or in English.

Kr

Marcus

Marcus here is a link to an excellent website that shows the ribbon bars for most DDR medals with the German name and the English translation: http://www.medals.lava.pl/de/ddr.htm

Kevin

[Marcus H]

Thanks Kevin that will be very handy !

[Marcus H]

I've a couple of East German medals in the collection where there's some mistake in the ribbon useage, this one could be an end of a role leader marker perhaps or just a unobserved faulty ribbon applied....it must have been a mundane job.

It's an odd one, theres the correct style next to it, note the addition of the red line ??

Has anyone seen the likes before ?

Kr

Marcus

[Marcus H]

The reverse

[Gerd Becker]

Thanks, Kevin. You have some very nice and rare DDR-medals. Thats a good photo, which shows the remarkable difference in quality very good.

Ed, i have never seen a good photo of the Armed-Struggle-participants-Medal.

Thanks everyone for sharing their treasures.

Gerd

[Paul R]

I have seen cases where the ribbons were applied backwards on Soviet and East German medals. However, I have never seen any print mistakes like that before on medal ribbons. I would have thought that they would have spotted the defect in the medal ribbon before putting it on the medal.

Paul

Edited November 6, 2005 by Paul Reck

[Ed_Haynes]

It is my understanding that the "normal" ribbon wrap pattern was used for the military (and civilians?) while the "backwards" wrap was used for the VoPo and other paramilitary bodies. I do not know if this is true.

Also interesting is the appearance of the "small-square-ribbon" medals (e.g., Hans Beimler) on "normal" pentagonal suspenders for wear by military sorts. Shall be showing one of these "soon".

But Marcus' extra red stripe defies explanation.

Edited November 6, 2005 by Ed_Haynes

[Ed_Haynes]

See my latest over on

http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=1245&st=15

while there is some Soviet stuff there, all is to an East German.

Edited November 9, 2005 by Ed_Haynes