Posted on 09/10/2009 5:44:14 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
That’s why the Soviet troops were heading west.
Good to see the TIMES was as concerned with accuracy then as now. That’s not a picture of a tank [see the tires?]. It’s an armored car.
And they do allude to the fact that Guderian is in the process of slipping his leash and busting it for Brest-Litovsk.
Do you suppose it is one of these guys? (Scroll down for pics.)
Thank you!
Also, I have a couple of (conservative) coworkers who are big WWII buffs and would eat this up...I’ll definitely refer them to FR and (subsequently) your ping list!
Yep. Looks like it. Can’t see from the photo if it has a frame antenna on it. Used fro recon with the Panzers.
I wonder if it is from the joint German-Soviet tank testing program. But I thought that stopped in 1933 when Hitler came into power. There used to be a German run tank school in Kazan, USSR.
I don’t know where this emblem came from. Most of the German/Soviet collaboration was back in the 1920’s during the time of Groener and Frunze. Both states were international pariahs; Germany after Versailles and the USSR because it was the USSR. It made sense for some secret collaboration. The Germans got to play with forbidden toys, the Russians were exposed to Western military technology and doctrine.
The collaboration had begun to peter out even before Hitler came to power. This badge is a curiosity. Maybe a forgery?
As an ironic twist: The military schools run by the Germans trained a generation of Soviet officers, who had reached command grade by the mid 1930’s. It proved to be a fatal education. Stalin had all of them purged. He claimed these schools recruited them as German spies.
My long held suspicion is that some secret interactions were taking place between Germany and Russia in the 1930's leading up to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-Aggression Pact. This little page 14 snippet adds fuel to my suspicions.
Yeah, I did some quick looking and it looks like Kazan shut down sometime in late September in 1933, and Lipetsk (the air training school) in June of the same year. I cant find anything on the chemical warfare school, but I’d be suprised if it didn’t wrap up around the same time.
That may not be the source of the medal then and I would have to wonder why it was in the home of a former German journalist in France on top of that.
If it was a forgery, I suspect the French would have been the forgers and that the story would have received greater play in France.
My wife took some French lessons while living in Louisiana, maybe I can interest her in researching French newspaper archives... not.
It's possible that it may have been a commemorative badge from a journalist conference or something of the sort. Even if it was just a commemorative, I have difficulty envisioning any Soviet journalistic involvement that was not officially sanctioned.
Here's the Wiki on the German paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Allgemeine_Zeitung
Who knows? Maybe they made up a bunch in expectation that the school would continue in 1934, and it didn’t happen. Kind of like all those “Buffalo Bills Super Bowl Champions” T Shirts that Logo Athletic printed up in the early 1990s...and got shipped to poor kids in Ghana and Costa Rica...
Lol. Maybe that's what it is.
It could also be something that the journalist had made for him too. Say for example he had done reporting from Moscow and wanted some symbol to signify it. Reminds me of when my middle son got a trophy after the end of his first gymnastics competition. Not because he won, and for that matter they weren't even giving out trophies (or medals at that level) but I had it made to commemorate his first competition. Not really an "official" anything.
Fso301, it doesn't sound like you should ask her to run down to the library and start translating newspapers. ;)
Do you suppose it is one of these guys?
Hah! That’s it!
Where can I get one of those? It’d keep the guys in Humvees in their lane.
lol.
good one
8-wheel steering?
The hoaxed 1943 NY Times front page in post number 7 is being believed by some posters.
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