7. Day, Oktober 2021
I have decided to do the badges of rank today after all!
Let's take a closer look first:
In the late summer of 1941 Konstantin Simonow wore two "bars" on his collar - which corresponded to the army rank of a major ...:
However, the color of the collar tabs cannot be precisely verified on the photo - so research is required first.
As a "front correspondent" Simonov was subordinate to the Political Headquarters of the Red Army, his boss was called Lev Sakharovich Mechlis, who was a close confidante of Stalin and therefore a creep of the purest, with plenty of blood on his hands!
So we have to imagine Simonov with a commissar badge on his collar.
In 1941 the Red Army was governed by the principle of "double leadership", which means that the commander of each formation was (until mid-1942) assigned an equal "political deputy" or "commissioner", without whose approval the commander could not give orders!
These "political representatives" wore collar tabs of the same color as other soldiers in this unit, i.e. red for the infantry, blue for the cavalry, green for the border troops and so on.
There was only one difference:
The commander had gold piping around the collar tabs ...
... his "political deputy" black ones ...:
In addition to the badges of rank on the collar, the "Politruk" wore "Commissar's Stars" on the sleeves on the forearm, as shown in the photo above.
Whoever fell into the hands of the aggressors of the Hitler Wehrmacht with these badges on their uniforms, like this poor pig here ...
... had to follow the criminal "commissioner's order" ...
... from General Alfred Jodl, the Chief of the Wehrmachts-Führungsstab (Wehrmacht Command Staff) ...
... immediately
"be dealt with with the gun".
The above photo, found on a dead German soldier, shows the prisoner moments before he was murdered.
As a member of the Political Headquarters but front correspondent WITHOUT authority, Konstantin Simonow wears the red collar tabs of the infantry with the black piping and the two red "bars" of a
"Bataljonnij Kommissar", but not the red stars on the sleeves ...:
The salutation was not
"Comrade Battalion Commissar", but
"Comrade Chief Political Leader" ...
From gold foil and thick 180-gram paper I built these tiny badges of rank today ...
... and attached them on the collars of my bust...:
Cheers