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Today I added the Karl Liebknecht Medal – for apprentices who have excelled during their training – and the Honour Title of Master Miner. This is unusual in that each medal bears the date of award, and as it was instituted in 1950 a lot have been handed out! As the only thing that changes is the number I decided to put up a representative one rather than spend ages ferreting around for every year…
Two more East German medals: Honour Title of Distinguished Collective Member and Honour Title of Champion of Collective Farming. The first could be awarded to members of agricultral, horticultural, or fishing cooperatives, the second was for farming and didn’t last long being replaced by the Honour Title of Meritorious Collective Farmer (which I put up a while back).
I wish you all a happy and medal-filled New Year – see you on the other side!
Guess what? After the series of Meritorious Worker in [insert trade] medals and Distinguished Service in [insert trade] medals, there’s another series, this time called Medal of Merit in [insert trade] – which were primarily long service medals and which were awarded to all workers in the appropriate trade or industry who’d served for the requisite time. You could also get them earlier for particularly outstanding achievements at work. I started off with the medals for the Coal and Energy industries – Coal being for the production thereof, Energy for the generation of electricity regardless of fuel used.
Two more trade-related East German medals of merit today – for forestry and for veterinary medicine. The veterinary one is more of an actual award for merit rather than the others, which last week and this, were more long service awards, and it also was created very late, in 1987 – this could explain why I haven’t found the Class 1 gold medal yet!
Added the Medal of Merit for the German Railroads – interesting in that it could be awarded up to 3 times and each time a stripe was added to the ribbon, rather than coming in 3 discrete classes. However finding images took absolutely ages!!!
Just the one East German medal today, the Medal for Merit in Sea Transport. It took a while because whilst conducting a bit of research prior to uploading I discovered that on my own website I’d put images of the Medal for Long Service in Sea Transport up in its place… so I had to go and find the CORRECT medal for you. Just as well I do the research!
(But at least the Medal for Long Service in Sea Transport is all ready to go when its turn comes!)
Added the East German Medal for Merit in the German Postal Service… sorry, just the one today. My husband is in hospital & I’m a bit here & there at the moment!
Two more East German medals: the Helene Weigel Medal for dramatic performances that embodied the ‘correct’ ideals of the socialist-realistic art of representation (but how enjoyable were the shows?) and the Lessing Medal for high performing High School seniors who also displayed very good social and extra-curricular work.
The Lessing Medal passed through four versions, the first two were non-portable table medals, but with obverses identical to the last two wearable forms. As we don’t really ‘do’ table medals, I’ve only added the two wearable versions.
Dearly beloved is back home and much happier in familiar surroundings, I am glad to say.
More East Germany: two medals with a connection to education, being the Dr.Theodor Neubauer Medal and the Humboldts Medal. The first rewarded good work particularly in areas of planning and theory in what a US audience would call K-12 and the UK refers to as primary and secondary schools, interesting it could be awarded to parents who supported children’s education by serving on the equivalent of school boards and other activities, as well as to professionals in education. The Humbolts Medal rewarded similar service in post-18 education in colleges and universities.
There’s still a bit to go with East Germany, but I’m beginning to think about what’s next. If there’s a nation anyone particularly wants to see, please sing out. Otherwise it will likely be South Africa, which is proving fascinating, and then maybe Colombia. But I’m open to suggestions.
Couple more East German medals today: the Kurt Barthel Medal for activities promoting cultural life such as libraries and with a particular eye to youth groups, and the Hufeland Medal, for services to health and social care.
Continuing the theme of East German health care, today I added the Friedrich Wolf Medal, named after a doctor with some advanced ideas for his time who was an early communist, then the Medal for Merit in the Administration of Justice.
Less pleasant aspects of East Germany today, the Medal of Merit for People’s Control. This had a more convoluted history than I’d realised, starting off as a Badge of Honour, then becoming a Medal, and finally being expanded to three classes.
Somewhat more pleasant topics in today’s visit to East Germany with the Medal for Merit for Mine Rescues and the Lifesaving Medal. It’s interesting that the Lifesaving Medal was only awarded for rescues made at the risk of one’s own life. Rescues in which the rescuer was not themselves at risk were marked by letters of commendation.
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