Clasps of the Crusade Medal, Formerly known as "Rod"

I have seen this information on wehrmacht awards forum:

Thanks for your replies.

Do you know what is meant with the quote below? Were these medals produced officially?

From what I know Souval produced after the war medals and badges of the Third Reich and probably the romanian medal. From 1957 they produced denazified versions for veterans, and I believe that produced the Crusade against Bolshevism medal too. The medals were manufactured officially for veterans.

Thanks. Were the Souval issues sanctioned by the National Mint? I guess that only then one can speak about official issues. Otherwise the medals should be regarded only as privately made copies, shouldn't they?

What are the characteristic features of the Souval medals?

Interesting information. Are the Souval-made medals signed by "P. Grant"?

In any case, they should be considered copies.

According to Safta et al book on Romanian war decorations, the Crusade medal was instituted on 1 April 1942 by Royal Decree no. 1014 and was awarded irrespective of rank to all military and auxiliary personnel with distinguished activity on the Eastern front.

An interesting note regards the metal bars. It appears that only one bar was supposed to be worn at one time, namely the bar corresponding to the latest battle to which the bearer of the medal has participated. And the authors also mention that the fact that the first bar was bronze and all the subsequent ones were silvered. If this is true, then the medals with multiple bars are in violation of the regulations. Does anyone have access to the decree that instituted the medal to confirm the regulations?

A 'Cruciada...' medal with a CRIMEA bar/rod (currently on eBay).
Notice the different spelling, compared to the similar bar shown on the previous page (spelled CRIMEIA).



There is an interesting note inserted by the seller:

I haven't heard this medal being dubbed the 'Kukuruz-orden' (i.e. 'maise medal', reference to forward observers, who watched the battlefield from corn field).

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on November 09, 2005 07:28 pm

Dénes, thanks for providing this confirmation of the CRIMEA bar. I was beginning to think that the bar in the image posted earlier was the only one (although its presence together with another bronze bar might raise some questions if Klietmann or Safta et al are right).

A German medal bar with a "Crusade" medal with "CRIMEIA" bar.

Notice that the Romanian medal was mounted on the bar in a different way compared to the German ones, in order to mount the bar.

Speaking about the Safta et al book on Romanian war decorations, I must quote something from it:

I know that we have identified more than ten bars, but I wonder which one of the eleven listed by the authors does not fit in the list.

One with "Caucaz" bar, from E-bay.

And a German 4-place medal bar, including a Crusade medal with "Donet" bar. Originally posted on the wermacht awards forum.

The interesting aspect with this medal is that it has a narrow (German style?) ribbon with a broad bar. How common was that?

Here we have the opposite case: a medal with wide ribbon and narrow bar. Common?

It appears that the term for the metal additions to the ribbon of the medal is 'clasp'. I will use this term from now on.

Based on the images posted this far, I can update the list of clasps of the 'Crusade' medal (bold-faced names refer to images of broad clasps posted this far; italic-faced names refer to narrow clasps posted this far; simple-faced names refer to bars that have yet to be posted).

AZOV
BASARABIA
BUCOVINA
BUG
CAUCAZ
CALMUCIA
CRIMEA
CRIMEEA
CRIMEIA
DOBROGEA
DONEŢ
KALMUCEA
MAREA NEAGRĂ
MARE NEGRU (misspelling ?)
NIPRU
NISTRU
DNJESTR (for Germans?)
ODESA
ODESSA
PRUT
STALINGRAD

Please let us know if you have knowledge of any further clasps or other errors in the list (fakes - more or less notorious, details on the various versions for names etc.).