Captured!

[DougD]

Great photo from a new Schiffer book about German War booty shows this shot of German Troops with captured M1940 Soviet unit flags.

I can't quite figure out the flag on the far left; artillery award flag?

the other two are regimental; middle looks like 99th rifle regt.?

Great shot!

DougD

[otlichnik]

The middle is 99th independent something. Rifle Brigade??

The left is very odd, eh? It says atillery at the bottom and some sort of detachment (?) at the top. Perhaps it is the "banner" of some sort of integral artillery unit which would not have officially had its own M1940 banner. Say an artillery battalion of a rifle division?

Shawn

[DougD]

Its interesting to see the frillis off both right side and middel M1940 flags; I have seen alot in the museums like this.

The artillery flag could be for for a unit attached to a larger unit, but also could be a competition flag, which is my guess. Award flags were often flown along with the regimental flags

DD

[otlichnik]

Doug,

Now that I examine the right hand one closely it ends in "artillery regiment". So you must be right. I bet the left one is a compettition banner for the right hand unit.

Shawn

[Tal Inbar]

What was the punishment for loosing the unit's banners? 9 grams of lead?

Tal

[desantnik]

Originally Posted by otlichnik

Doug,

Now that I examine the right hand one closely it ends in "artillery regiment". So you must be right. I bet the left one is a compettition banner for the right hand unit.

Shawn

I agree with this assessment of the competition banner. The top of the banner probably reads "za otlichnuyu boevuyu podgotovku" (For Excellent Combat/Military Training). I say this because "boevuyu" is clearly feminine and, the next word's first letter looks like a Cyrillic "p" for "podgotovku".

[yolkin]

Originally Posted by Tal Inbar

What was the punishment for loosing the unit's banners? 9 grams of lead?

Tal

Tal I remember reading somewhere that if a regimental flag was lost during a military action, the direct commanding officer would never be given a command again. I am sure that the "9 grams of lead" was a common solution for such a misfortune.

On the flipside of this, if a regimental flag was saved, the persom who carried it out was awarded the Order of Red Banner. I know this fom my grandfather's stories of when his Artillery Unit was retreating, there was someone who wrapped the flag around their body underneath their uniform and carried the flag to safety. Subsequentlythat person received the ORB.

Eric

[Doug]

I have a group to a Junior Sergeant in the 3rd Tank Regiment, 1st Mech Corps who rescued the regiment's banner and important documents from capture. Rather than a Red Banner, he received a Glory 3rd Class for this action. Not bad for a shtabnoj avtobus shoferom (staff bus driver)!

[Alfred]

Hello,

here is a picture with German soldiers and a captured soviet flag.
Seems to be a Kolchos flag.

regards
Andreas

[Soviet]

Wow nice picture Andreas! Did you buy it or it is still on eBay?

By the way, here is a Soviet flag that was capture in Russia by the Germans during WWII. It was recover by the soviet army after the battle of Berlin, I can't recall it wich city in Russia it was capture. The flag is now at the Karlshorst Museum in Berlin.