Soviet Sergeant Gnitienko's "Glory-Trio"

[Christian Zulus]

Gnitienko's special award card - part 1

Gentlemen,

Paul sent the special award card ("Cavaliers Card") with the wrong s/n. of the Glory 1 cl to me.

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

Gnitienko's special award card - part 2

[Christian Zulus]

Gnitienko's entry in the book "Cavaliers of All Three Classes of the Order of Glory" Military Publishing House, Moscow, 2000, p. 132

[Christian Zulus]

No booklet-number in the special award card?

Gentlemen,

a question to our experts:

Is it usual, that the serial number of the Cavaliers Booklet "I 503369" is not noted in the special award card?

Best regards

Christian

[Mondvor]

Chrisitan, thanks for sharing this group with us. I think this is an excellent, problem-free set. I didn't find any suspicious details. Just can say that it is a great addition to any collection, my congratulations!

[Christian Zulus]

Many thanks, Andrew

Best regards

Christian

Chrisitan, thanks for sharing this group with us. I think this is an excellent, problem-free set. I didn't find any suspicious details. Just can say that it is a great addition to any collection, my congratulations!

[slava1stclass]

Chrisitan, thanks for sharing this group with us. I think this is an excellent, problem-free set. I didn't find any suspicious details. Just can say that it is a great addition to any collection, my congratulations!

To all:

Other than the outstanding discrepancy regarding the serial number for his Order of Glory 1st Class, I would tend to agree. All the remaining features of this Full Cavalier set appear true. In reviewing G's Special Awards Record Card, it is clear the late award of his Glory 1st was due to an earlier, erroneous double award of the Order of Glory 2nd Class.

This error wasn't corrected until 29 December 1980 when the order for his Glory 1st was issued in Moscow. Just a little less than two months later - on 20 February 1981 - he was issued his Full Cavalier awards booklet (and presumably his Order of Glory 1st Class) when summoned to his local military commissariat in Kharkov.

So the question then becomes one of why the serial number for the Order of Glory 1st class in his possession (and annotated in his Full Cavalier booklet) i.e., s/n 1965 differs from that recorded on his Special Awards Record Card, i.e. s/n 3646.

As the majority of the critical elements of a Full Cavalier Booklet were filled out/completed in Moscow (only the recipient's personal photograph, official military commissariat stamp and date the booklet was issued were added/penned in at the local level) the error (if in fact true) occurred in Moscow. This then begs the question of how this could have occurred given his Special Awards Record Card clearly indicates his Glory 1st should have serial number 3646.

Are we to assume the official government calligrapher in Moscow designated to fill out Full Cavalier Booklets somehow got it wrong? Possible, though unlikely. He/she had to be working off of some sort of official documentation when filling in G's Full Cavalier Booklet.

It is possible G's Uchyotnaya Kartochka will shed more light on this. If this, too, lists his Glory 1st s/n as 3646, "We've got a problem Houston."

Hope this helps.

P.S. As for Full Cavalier Booklet serial numbers being listed on the Special Awards Record Card, I'll need to do some checking and will let you know.

Regards,

slava1stclass

Edited December 13, 2006 by slava1stclass

[Mondvor]

From this Gnitienko group there is only one question, but it does not directly interact with the group's autenticity. This question is about the wrong number in the book issued in 2005 with the list of the full cavalier's orders of Glory numbers. However, if you check at the same book the number of Gnitienko's first class order, you can see that this position is blank. Why does it happened?

First of all I have to say that several mistakes in this book have been found already (as well as in the previously issued book with Gold Star numbers). It is normal. The source of the information for this book were record cards (you can see this wrong number in his record card too). But it is possible that clerk made a mistake while filling out the record card. I have seen several award cards and order books having the wrong numbers.

How could it happened in Gnitienko's case? Just one possible version (I'm not pretending it to be true, just a theory).

His initial award card was filled right after the war, most likely from 1946 to 1948. Of course at this time he didn't have his first class Glory. Instead he had two 2nd class orders. And I bet those two second classes were listed in his initial award card. If you take a look at his documents, you can see that second Glory 2nd class was issued on September 1944. It could be a 4-digit number. What if this mysterious 3646 is a number of his additional 2nd class Glory? It was listed in his original award card and clerk found this old card and copied the information to record card without noticing that it was 2nd class, not 1st class.

Later, in 1980, the new award card was issued. At this time it was rewritten and probably contained correct information. So the solution would be to find Gnitienlo's award cards (both if possible).

The orderbook of the full Glory cavalier is original in every respect. I do not see any traces of corrections or erasures. The 1st class number matches with order number. So everything is OK here. I do not think that somebody could find unissued 1st class Glory # 1965, also find unissued orderbook and make such group. It is very unlikely.

BTW, if you check the numbers around 1965 you can see that many of them were issued in 1970-80th.

[slava1stclass]

So the solution would be to find Gnitienlo's award cards (both if possible).

Mondvor,

Concur. I suggested this approach very early on in this thread. Herr Zulus has apparently ordered further research to help bring this rather unusual case to closure - hopefully for the better.

Regards,

slava1stclass

[Christian Zulus]

far too many questions ..., no right-minded collector ..., etc., etc.

To all:

No matter how you look at it, this set raises far too many questions. I made this point to Herr Gattringer of Austria some time ago. In my view, no right-minded collector would feel comfortable buying this as a Full Knight/Cavalier set - no matter how one might seek to justify it as such.

Regards,

slava1stclass

Dear Mr. "slava1stclass",

Herr Gattringer of Austria never existed - you had been corresponding with me .

Many thanks for your fruitful remarks to the topic .

I am looking forward to your great book about the "Order of Glory" - and I think, that the whole collectors communinty will be eager to buy a copy of your volume. Please reserve two copies for me.

Best regards

Christian Zulus

BTW: I feel rather strange to correspond with a Mr. "slava1stclass", where nobody knows, which person is exactly behind that great "avatar" .

Edited December 14, 2006 by Christian Zulus

[Christian Zulus]

BTW, if you check the numbers around 1965 you can see that many of them were issued in 1970-80th.

Dear Andrew,

great thanks for your phaleristic-scientific contributions to the topic .

Through the years I also got the feeling, that the s/n.-range about 1900 might be very, very typical for Glory 1 cl catch-up awards.

The s/n.-range of about 3500 is for me typical for the "Oder" or "Berlin" operations in 1945, but not for operation "Bagration" in summer 1944, where Gnitienko received his second Glory 2 cl.

That is true: Gnitienko's "wrong" s/n. of his Glory 1 cl might maybe come close to the s/n. of his second Glory 2 cl .

I checked my e-mails dealing with Gnitienko's "wrong" numbered Glory 1 cl from the last years and found a note of PMD - about 2 1/2 years ago - remarking, that Gnitienko's wrong s/n. of his Glory 1 cl is noted in two different and independent records. That might be a very interesting aspect.

The fact is, that Sgt. (ret.) Gnitienko received at the 20th of february 1981 the Order of Glory 1 cl with the s/n. 1965 at the Military Commissariat of Charkov. The other fact is, that some office clerk noted at the 29th of december 1980 in Moscow in the special award card, that comrade Gnitienko shall receive the Order of Glory 1 cl with the s/n. 3646.

What had happened between Moscow & Charkov and between december 1980 and february 1981 ?

My theory is, that a simple clerical mistake had happened. Maybe such clerical mistakes occured more frequently in the 1980s, than in the second half of the 1940s ?

I hope, that I can post the rest of Gnitienko's documents and records within the next weeks in this thread.

Best regards

Christian

[Christian Zulus]

Sergeant Gnitienko's heroic deeds for his 3 Glories

Gentlemen,

coming back to posting # 4 of this thread http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtop...ost&p=53910 , I want to note the heroic deeds for Sgt. Gnitienko's 3 Glories (before and after the GPW Gnitienko had been a worker):

Glory 3 cl:

For rescuing 4 (four) severly wounded comrades from the battle field under risking his own life (2nd Guards Army, Crimea, 3rd of april 1944).

Glory 2 cl:

For killing several Nazi-soldiers (2nd Guards Army, Crimea, 24th of april 1944).

Glory 1 cl:

For killing 20 (twenty) Nazi-soldiers (51st Army, "Operatian Bagration", Latvia, Jelgava, 2nd of august 1944).

A rather fast promotion through the 3 grades of the Order of Glory - maybe too fast .

For an infantry-NCO a matching mixture: Killing Nazis & rescuing comrades .

Best regards

Christian

Edited December 26, 2007 by Christian Zulus

[Riley1965]

A clerical error...possible. One would think that something as important as awarding the 1st class for a full Cavalier of the OoG would be more carefully recorded. Let me re-read this entire thread and my other resources before I give my final opinion.

Doc

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Doc,

your expertise would be welcome .

Best regards

Christian

A clerical error...possible. One would think that something as important as awarding the 1st class for a full Cavalier of the OoG would be more carefully recorded. Let me re-read this entire thread and my other resources before I give my final opinion.

Doc

[slava1stclass]

far too many questions ..., no right-minded collector ..., etc., etc.

Herr Gattringer of Austria never existed - you had been corresponding with me .

Herr Zulus,

Unless you've assumed another person's identity, Fred has been a member of the "other" Soviet awards forum for quite some time.

Here's his homepage as listed on the other forum:

http://www.mobilkomaustria.com/CDA/framese...html-en,00.html

He's in your own backyard.

Regards,

slava1stclass

[Christian Zulus]

Herr Zulus, Unless you've assumed another person's identity, Fred has been a member of the "other" Soviet awards forum for quite some time.

Here's his homepage as listed on the other forum:

http://www.mobilkomaustria.com/CDA/framese...html-en,00.html

He's in your own backyard.

Regards,

slava1stclass

Dear Mr. "slava1stclass",

sorry, I had been a little unprecise : I wanted to say, that Fred didn't exist as person, who is really interested in Soviet Orders & Medals or any other awards (except the ones, he received from the Austrian State for being an excellent manager). Fred prefers playing golf .

As I remember, Mr. George W. Bush had been also a "real existing" member of the "other" Soviet awards forum for a (very short) time in 2002. He wanted to sell his fathers WW-II-decorations, because George jr. told the members of the "other" forum, that he is short of money due to the ENRON-crash and his father, George sr., allowed him to trade all the glamorous US-Awards. Mr. Bush jr. was a very nice and friendly member, who showed us a lot of photographs and Mr. President was really interested in phaleristics. But within a few hours Mr. President had been banned for lifetime by the owner or some moderator of the "other" Soviet forum. Maybe George W. Bush violated the rules by posting his fathers US-Awards and not any USSR-Awards .

Strange and funny things might happen at the www ...

Coming back to the topic:

Dear Mr. "slava1stclass", I appreciate very much your phaleristic work, which you have done in the research of all aspects of the Order of Glory and I will be among the very first purchasers of your future book about that special award.

Doc Riley did a great job for the Order of the Red Star and you are doing a great job for the Glory.

What I personally do not appreciate so much, is your style in communication and your (very fast) judgments about "right-minded collectors" and so on:

"problem-free set" vs. "raises too many questions", etc.

Nobody knows the absolute truth . You might be a wise guy and a well educated man, but not the only "right-minded collector" among the community. It is the Gentleman's Military Interest Club .

Best regards

Christian

BTW: Maybe the moderators could install a "pinned-thread" for your Glory-research - as for the RS - here at GMIC?

Edited December 14, 2006 by Christian Zulus

[NavyFCO]

As I remember, Mr. George W. Bush had been also a "real existing" member of the "other" Soviet awards forum for a (very short) time in 2002. He wanted to sell his fathers WW-II-decorations, because George jr. told the members of the "other" forum, that he is short of money due to the ENRON-crash and his father, George sr., allowed him to trade all the glamorous US-Awards.

Uhhh... I don't think the Bush family has money problems that forced them to resort to selling family medals to raise cash. Chances are that someone was falsely identifying themselves. Given that the site owner can see the location of the IP address where the poster is posting from, he probably noted that it wasn't in Maine, Texas or a government one, so he simply deleted the account. Makes sense to me!

Anyway, back on topic...

Is there any chance of researching Glory 2nd 3646? I think it would be worth the $40 cost to get the award card just to verify WHO it belonged to and take out (or reenforce) the thought that the administrative error might have been made.

Dave

[Christian Zulus]

Is there any chance of researching Glory 2nd 3646? I think it would be worth the $40 cost to get the award card just to verify WHO it belonged to and take out (or reenforce) the thought that the administrative error might have been made.

Dave

Dear Dave,

excellent proposal .

But we don't know by now, if the s/n. of Gnitienko's second Glory 2 cl had been actually 3646.

The adminstrative error is proven, I think, because the set & doc is authentic & genuine. We have to find out WHERE and maybe WHY the clerical mistake happened.

The research is going on .

Dave, is there a sort of "fast-track" to get an award card immediatly - like Paul can offer with the special award cards?

Best regards

Christian

[slava1stclass]

Anyway, back on topic...

Is there any chance of researching Glory 2nd 3646? I think it would be worth the $40 cost to get the award card just to verify WHO it belonged to and take out (or reenforce) the thought that the administrative error might have been made.

Dave

Dave,

Your point is very well taken. While we all remain hopeful this will serve to explain/clarify the glaring records/serial number disconnect, unfortunately there is only so much wishful theorizing one can do in an attempt to otherwise legitimize it.

Regards,

slava1stclass

[NavyFCO]

The adminstrative error is proven, I think, because the set & doc is authentic & genuine. We have to find out WHERE and maybe WHY the clerical mistake happened.

Unfortunately, there's no fast track for award cards...they take time. However, until we can either conclusively prove that his 2nd class was either number 3646 or that his issued 1st class was 1965, I say that we cannot know for certain that the group is "right".

At the moment, we have two sources (granted, one was probably created from the other) that say that his 1st class is number 3646 and only one source that says it's 1965. Given that I have seen more bad documents than I care to think of (including at least one that was officially "documented" as being legit and authentic by more than one top expert) my opinion is against the document with the group until proven otherwise.

Dave

[Christian Zulus]

I say that we cannot know for certain that the group is "right".

Dave

Dear Dave,

I can not follow your "logic" :

Medals & document are genuine & authentic, why should Gnitienko's group not be "right" ?

Do you assume, that the medals and/or the booklet might be faked and doctored?

Best regards

Christian

Edited December 14, 2006 by Christian Zulus

[NavyFCO]

Do you assume, that the medals and/or the booklet might be faked and doctored?

Christian:

What i'm saying is that in my opinion, one cannot know for certain if a document is doctored until it has been researched. Your document looks good. HOWEVER, in 1999, I bought a group (very expensive at the time) that had a document that was looked at by not just one, but several "experts" (to include several whom we would all agree are experts, not just random collectors) who all unanimously and without question agreed that the document and it's entries were real.

However, when the research came back, it proved that the document had been doctored, and two awards had been added into the book. This was a shock to all, as the book was PERFECT. I mean PERFECT. (I only wish I had good scans of it!)

That was back in 1999. The fellow I bought the group from bought it in 1997. So, if there were absolutely perfect books then, who is to say that there weren't other perfect documents created? When the USSR fell, all sorts of documents were "released"... Although we don't know of any blank Cavalier documents, who says that they too weren't released onto the market? Many awards were released onto the market from the mint as well as many other sources.... Orders of Lenin, Personal Courage, all Homeland classes, Glory 1st, etc...

Who is to say that someone with good sources in the early to mid-90s got a blank cavalier book, bought Gnitienko's group from his widow, threw out the second Glory 2nd and added in a Glory 1st from one of their sources? That might sound far fetched, but if you talk to some of the people who bought out the "big" collections and groups in the early 1990s, nothing was impossible...

Am I saying your group is bad? No. HOWEVER, there is no other documentation except for the Cavalier document to PROVE that it is real. Every other source thus far says that he was given another number Glory 1st.

What I'm saying is this: In order to conclusively prove that the group is good, there needs to be complete research done from every possible angle on it to fully document EVERY award number that is in the group, to prove conclusively that this group truly did belong to him.

Dave

[Bryan]

I wonder why only the Glory 1st has a stitched ribbon on the reverse and not the other others as well.

[NavyFCO]

Let me just clarify about my above post... I am not trying to be evil, mean or vindictive. I'm thinking of this group as if it was something that I was going to sell. I've sold many, many, many Soviet awards over the past 15 years (as well as thousands of other pieces of militaria from other nations) and I've always had to PROVE that something was legit, particularly when it was "big money", which this group is considered.

Thus, what I'm saying is this: If I were to sell this group for it's current value (debateable between $8K-$12K) I think I would have a really tough time selling it. Why? Because the "official" documents say that the Glory 1st isn't the right one. It's nice to have other collectors on the forum say that the book is right, but when someone is going to put that kind of money on the line, they want to KNOW beyond a legal "shadow of a doubt" that it's right. At this point, I don't think we can say that we all fully KNOW that it's right. Sure, it LOOKS right, but what we need is documented proof that the Glory 1st that's with the group is the right one. If we can get documentation from the archives that he was actually awarded this Glory 1st and that it was a bona-fide administrative error, then we can put this entire debate to rest.

Dave

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Bryan,

I wonder why only the Glory 1st has a stitched ribbon on the reverse and not the other others as well.

look at Gnitienko's photograph on p. 132 in the big red volume of the Cavaliers and you will dedect the too wide stitched ribbon of the Glory 1cl beside the 2 cl with the ribbon on the wrong side.

My theory is, that comrade Gnitienko ruined somehow the suspension of his new Glory 1 cl and his wife fixed afterwards the ribbon at the rv. in the shown stitched way.

Best regards

Christian