Red Army Medals of
The Great Patriotic War
(1941-1945)

In this section the medals of the Soviet Union will be described. Documentation, when available, will be pictured along with the medals themselves. As you can see our collection is slowly growing! Currently we have quite a few orders and medals, and more will be coming soon.

 

 

Earlier Period Medals
Return to
The Great Patriotic War
 Later Period Medals

 

Order of the Patriotic War

First Class

2nd Class

Established -

May 20, 1942

Composition -

Silver, Enamel, and Gold plating

Number Awarded -

1st Class - 344,000
2nd Class - 1,028,000

Designers -

A. Kuznetsov

The Order of the Patriotic War was awarded to both officers and men of the Soviet Army and Navy. It was also awarded to partisans for personal bravery and courage under fire. It could be awarded to servicemen for an outstanding contribution to the success of an operation.

This order was the first to be established during the war. Many were awarded the Order posthumously. It was bestowed on more than a thousand foreign citizens, 16 factories, 36 towns, and three newspapers.

The original Orders of the Great Patriotic War hung from a suspension above the medal. This idea was abandoned giving rise to the award you see here. In 1985, the Order was awarded to all surviving servicemen and women who took part in the war. The two examples shown on this page are from that period. 

Below are the ribbons that were also issued with the order.  They were worn on off duty uniforms.

1st Class Ribbon

2nd Class Ribbon

 

Order of Glory 3rd Class

Established -

November 8, 1943

Composition -

Silver and Enamel

Number Awarded -

948,260

Designer -

N. Moskalyov

The is award was bestowed on army and air force personnel up to the rank of junior lieutenant for heroic deeds.  It was bestowed for outstanding feats of valor and displays of courage in defense of the Soviet Union.  The order was awarded in three classes and a recipient had to be awarded a lower class order before he could earn the next higher class.

  The first person to receive this award was Sergent Georgi Israelyan, a combat engineer.  He would later go on to receive all three Orders of Glory.

Order of Glory Ribbon

This ribbon was awarded with the medal, and was worn when the full medal was not authorized (such as on off-duty uniforms).