An army badge with a personal number. "death medallion" Military medallion

Every day more and more South Urals residents learn about their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, who died and went missing during the Great Patriotic War.

Anton Sharpilov, head of the regional branch of the Russian Search Movement OOD in the Chelyabinsk Region, told the AiF-Chelyabinsk correspondent how the search teams find the remains of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland and perpetuate their memory.

30 years of searching

Daria Dubrovskikh, AiF-Chelyabinsk: Anton, how old is your movement in the Chelyabinsk region and who are its participants?

Anton Sharpilov: At first, in the eighties, initiative groups were created, which, at their own peril and risk, went to the places of battles and buried the soldiers of the Red Army. These groups were created by people who were not indifferent to the fate of those who gave their lives for our Motherland. Among them are Alexandra Popova, Valentina Pogodina, Galina Neretina, Ivan Abrakhin.

And only in 1989 the official expedition of the military-historical society "Bulat" appeared. In 1999, with the support of Governor Pyotr Sumin, the state military center "Bulat" was created, which was engaged in search work until 2012 and was the first in the Russian Federation to conduct search work in the Chechen Republic. Now the regional branch of the all-Russian search movement includes 30 teams, 460 participants from all over the region.

- How is the place for the expedition determined?

Each detachment is working on military units that were formed in the South Urals and sent to the front. For example, the Troitsk search unit "Strela" is working on the 80th Cavalry Division. She was recruited from the Cossacks who lived in Troitsk. The search engines are studying the combat path of this brigade: where they began to fight, where the main battles took place, where they suffered heavy losses. This is mainly the Leningrad region. The Phoenix search group of Magnitogorsk is looking for the dead South Urals residents in the Rzhevsky district.

Search engines should not be confused with trophy hunters. Photo:

- The main purpose of the search party on the expedition?

Find and re-bury the missing soldiers. Try to establish their identity.

- Is it even possible?

Possibly, but extremely difficult. With careful search and luck. Ideally, when there is a mortal medallion or a book of a Red Army soldier or some personal belongings on which the initials are indicated. Or some kind of award with a number.

You need any clue that can lead to the personal data of the fighter. Medallions are very rare, because among the soldiers there was a superstition - wearing a mortal medallion is not good.

- What unusual finds come across?

For example, members of the Svarog search group found a Swiss watch with the initials engraved on it. But, unfortunately, it was not possible to identify them. This year, the search engines of the Rusichi detachment found a sniper's mark. But, basically, mugs, bottles, pots, shells, mine debris and sapper shovels come across. Some people think that we are looking for some trophies, rare things. This is not true.

- This is what the so-called "black diggers" do. Are you confused with them?

Yes, black diggers are just looking for trophies, or they are looking for weapons and ammunition in order to bring what they found into combat condition and sell them profitably. We have nothing to do with this. And then it contradicts the search engine's moral code, adopted in the movement. We are not black diggers.

The main thing is to find at least some clue that will help establish the identity of the soldier. Photo: Regional branch of the OOD "Search Movement of Russia" in the Chelyabinsk region

Perpetuate the feat

- Since what year have you been in the search movement? Tell us about the most memorable expedition.

I have been working in this direction since 2011. And the most memorable expedition for me was a year later on the Sinyavinsky Heights. There were fierce battles for Leningrad during the Patriotic War. We followed in the footsteps of the 63rd Separate Naval Brigade. They found the remains of a soldier and a medallion (a twisting ebony pencil case, in which a piece of paper with the data of a soldier was inserted. - Author) in good condition and surprisingly with all the data filled in. It turned out to be a native of the Kursk region.

They found relatives, took their remains for burial in the city of Sudzha, Kursk region. At the ceremony, the 75-year-old son of the deceased soldier approached us and said that we had made his dream come true. Throughout his life, he dreamed of finding his father and at the end of his life he wanted to be buried next to him. And literally two months after that, grandfather's grandchildren called us and said that he had died.

For the sake of such moments, such a difficult task is being done. And what do you feel when you are there, in the place where a lot of blood was shed?

Words cannot convey this feeling. When you come to the places of battles, when you find these things, when you understand that seventy years ago there were fierce battles, as a result of which we now have a calm life, then it becomes, to put it mildly, uncomfortable.

A complete understanding and awareness of the depth of the feat that was accomplished comes. Understanding of how hard the victory was achieved. Search engines see with their own eyes that environment, feel the natural and climatic conditions in which our grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought.

Often we start digging trenches, and there water is knee-deep. We understand that we are just digging, and every day they ran around the damp trenches with a rifle and fired. These conditions were overcome every day. We must go on the offensive, and everywhere there is mud, slush. This puts a lot of psychological pressure on a person ...

For two or three weeks on the expedition, it becomes clear how the understanding and worldview are changing, especially among young people. And this once again testifies to the importance of search work for the younger generation.

- How can you leave a request to search for loved ones, and how many soldiers are found?

The application can be left in the "Search for relatives" section of the information portal www.chel-poisk.ru.

This year, the Landmark search group managed to restore the fate of those whom they considered missing in 86 families.

So, the youngest son Vyacheslav Sapegin, for the father, the deceased officer, the senior lieutenant of the 23rd separate mortar brigade, the chief of communications of the 529 division of the mortar regiment Pavel Sapegin, born in 1908, was awarded the Order of the Red Star for his courage and good organization of communications in battles in March -April 1945. The relatives donated the second order of the Red Army soldier Nikolai Sinelnikov to the fund of the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore.

Now representatives of search associations and detachments of the Chelyabinsk region are actively involved in spring expeditions. At the moment, the remains of thirty Red Army soldiers and three medallions have been raised on the territory of the Kirovsky District of the Leningrad Region. One of the medallions turned out to be unreadable, one was read. It belonged to senior sergeant Dudin Ilya Ivanovich, born in 1916, a native of the village of Dudnevo, Malinsky district, Moscow region.

The Rostok search party from the Chelyabinsk region discovered during an expedition in the Krasnoperekopsk region of the Republic of Crimea an unaccounted burial site that was not marked on the ground.

The identity of the soldier was also identified by the insert in the soldier's medallion. It turned out that the remains belong to the Red Army soldier of the 387th rifle division, a native of the Kunashak region, Siraev Khusnutdin Mingazovich, born in 1924, who died on 04/09/1944. The remains of the soldier were delivered to Chelyabinsk and will soon be reburied with all due honors.

I would like to note that in June this year, on the pedestrian part of Kirovka, near the monument to volunteer tankers, there will be a traveling exhibition “Search, we must not forget”, where Chelyabinsk citizens will be able to apply to search for their loved ones. Chelyabinsk detachment is conducting it.

In order to facilitate the identification of the killed and seriously wounded, the army command of many countries introduced the obligation for soldiers to wear special metal tags. The product in the form of a plate engraved with information about the owner and his place of service is today known as an army token. Popularly, these identification plates are called "death medallions", "dog tags" or "death row".

The introduction of army tokens makes it possible to forget about such a concept as an "unknown soldier" only in the armies of those states in which the wearing of these medallions is strictly monitored.

Acquaintance with the "suicide bomber"

An army badge is a metal product with a personal identification number, blood type of the owner, unit and unit in which the soldier served. In some "suicide bombers" the name and surname of the serviceman are also indicated.

An army token (a photo of the identification medallion is presented in the article) is equipped with a special hole with which a metal plate can be attached to a chain. These tags are worn around the neck.

About the first identification products

According to some scholars, Ancient Greece is considered the birthplace of army tokens. As "medallions of death" the Spartans used small plaques - wanderings, on which the warriors inscribed their names. Before the start of the battle, the wanderers were tied to the hand.

About German "dog tags"

There is a legend that the army token was invented by a Berlin shoemaker in the 1860s. He gave his two sons, who went to war with them, two homemade tags made of tin. The father indicated the personal information of his children to them. The shoemaker hoped that in the event of the death of his sons, they would not remain unidentified. Satisfied with his invention, he proposed to the Prussian War Ministry to introduce such tags for all military personnel. However, the shoemaker unsuccessfully argued his proposal, citing the example of the experience with dog tags. The Prussian king did not like such a comparison. Nevertheless, after a while, they nevertheless returned to this idea. As an experiment, it was decided to apply tin "dog tags" to certain parts of the Prussian army.

After the Austro-Prussian War

In 1868, the Prussian general physician F. Loeffler wrote the book "The Prussian military medical service and its reform." In it, the author described in detail all the advantages of wearing individual identification medallions by soldiers and officers. As an argument, he cited the sad experience of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866: out of 8893 human bodies, only 429 were identified. After this reasoning, the Prussian military command approved the obligatory wearing of "mortal medallions" by all servicemen and officers.

These products were made from tin. They were characterized by a rectangular shape and rounded corners. The upper edge was equipped with two holes through which the cord was threaded. The necessary information on the medallion was stuffed by the owner himself or by local craftsmen. Named army tokens with engraving were intended for officers. The surface of the officer's "suicide bomber" was subjected to the procedure of chrome plating and silvering. The name and surname were indicated at the top of the tin plate, below - the military unit. The officers bought medallions, but for the soldiers, the "death row" was free. The soldier's number and the name of the unit were indicated on the token.

Identification badges in the First World War

In 1914, in Germany, the military command refused to enter only the name of the unit and the personal number of the serviceman on the medallions. Now the soldier had the right to indicate his name and surname. In addition, the death row bore the date of birth and home address. The medallion also indicated the transfer to the new part. The old unit number was crossed out. The standard size of an army token was approved: 7 x 5 cm. These dimensions remained until the end of the Great Patriotic War. The tokens of the 1915 model were made of zinc alloy. Later, duralumin was used in the production of identification medallions.

How were tokens worn?

Medallions were worn on special laces 800 mm long. However, as practice has shown, the left inner pocket of the jacket and a special leather chest wallet were ideal places for tokens. Checking whether servicemen had identification medallions was carried out by sergeant major, less often by officers. If a soldier did not have his personal badge, then after a disciplinary penalty he was given a new one.

About German tokens during World War II

Wehrmacht soldiers used identification tags made of zinc or brass. Since 1935, tokens have been predominantly manufactured from aluminum alloy. Since 1941, the production of "suicide bombers" from ordinary steel has been established. The sizes of the tokens varied between 5 x 3 cm and 5 x 7 cm. The thickness was 1 mm. On the badges of the Nazi naval forces, the name of the ship, the name, surname and number of the owner in the crew list were indicated. The parameters were envisaged: 5 x 3 cm. For the ground forces, the SS and the Wehrmacht police, zinc medallions of the 1915 model were intended. The lower edge of the badge was equipped with an additional hole, with the help of which it was possible to connect the broken identification badges into one bundle.

Military experts of the Wehrmacht considered that it was undesirable to enter the name, surname, date of birth and home address of the owner, since the enemy could use this information. In 1939, the standard German badge of 1915 underwent some changes: the badge now indicated only a military unit and a serial number. Later, in order to classify information about military units, a corresponding 5- or 6-digit digital code was created for each of them. In 1940, the letters O, A, B or AB appeared for the first time on the fascist "suicide bombers". They designated the soldier's blood type.

About American "dog tags"

The standard size of the badge was 5 x 3 cm. The thickness of the American medallion was 0.5 mm. White metal was used in the manufacture of the identification item. The medallion had rounded edges and smoothed edges. Only 18 letters were machine-embossed on it.

They were located on five lines. The first indicated the soldier's name. The second is the army serial number, tetanus vaccination and blood type. The third line contains the name of the closest relative. The fourth and fifth are the home address. Since 1944, it was decided to remove the last two lines by the decision of the US command. Also on the American "suicide bomber" was indicated the religion of its owner.

About medallions in the Red Army

During the Great Patriotic War, Soviet soldiers did not use metal tokens, but special, curling plastic pencil cases. The fighter wrote all personal data on paper, after which he put it in a pencil case. For this purpose, the Red Army soldier could use both a special form and an ordinary paper sheet.

The fighter had to issue two copies. After his death, one remained in the death box, and his relatives could get it. The second was intended for the office. As tokens, the Red Army also used ammunition casings. Having poured gunpowder out of the cartridge, Soviet soldiers inserted notes with personal data inside the cartridge case, and the hole was plugged with a bullet. However, this storage method is considered not the most successful. Water often got into the sleeve, as well as into the pencil case, as a result of which the paper was destroyed, and the text could not be read. Most of the Red Army men believed that the "death medallion" was a bad omen, and therefore they mostly wore it without a note.

Our days

Today, army medallions made of duralumin are intended for servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces, military formations and bodies. The plate bears a unique personal number of the soldier. The place of extradition of the "suicide bomber" was the military commissariat. You can also get it at the place of service.

About medallions from the Proff Grever workshop

Making army tokens to order is the main activity of this engraving workshop. Medallions are made here from brass, stainless steel and aluminum. Judging by the reviews of consumers, in Proff Grever you can order a product of any complexity. The craftsmen use diamond mechanical engraving in their work. For the inscriptions, a specially approved font is used that meets all the requirements of the Military Charter of the Russian Federation. The workshop is located in Moscow.

Souvenirs, which are very popular today, are also stylized under army tokens. A medallion in the style of an army tag will be a good gift by February 23rd.

MEDALLION OF A SOLDIER OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Valueva Nadezhda

Morgun Maria

6th grade 2nd platoon, MBOU Lyceum named after Major General V.I. Khismatulin,Surgut

Starkova-Ashurilaeva Nadezhda Arkadyevna

scientific director,teacher of the first qualification category, head of the Center for Continuing Education for Children,MBOU Lyceum named after Major General Khismatulin V.I.,Surgut

Relevance: After the end of the Great Patriotic War, many nameless remained: fraternal military graves, the remains of the dead, missing. It is necessary to find all, without exception, the remains of Soviet servicemen, to establish the identity of whom it is possible and to reburial with honors, giving their civic duty to those unnamed heroes who gave their lives for their country during the Great Patriotic War.

The time comes when the search engines go out into the fields where the hostilities took place in order to find soldiers, to bury the remains to the ground, when underwater search expeditions begin in order to find and identify the ships lying at the bottom, the mass graves of soldiers since the Great Patriotic War. war. The search movement has been operating since the 1950s-1960s, every year hundreds, if not thousands of missing soldiers rise from the ground, from craters, from rifle cells and simply from the fields where they fell in the last attack. By some estimates, hundreds of thousands of people are still missing.

There are many different exhibits in the museum "Loyal sons of Russia" of the municipal budgetary educational institution of the Lyceum named after Major General Vasily Ivanovich Khismatulin, but the exhibits brought by the cadets of our lyceum as part of the Nord search group are special: these are EXHIBITS found at excavations in the Pskov region ...

We present one of the exhibits of the Museum "Loyal Sons of Russia": a medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War of 1941, which was found in 2008 and transferred to our museum (Figure 1).

Drawing1 ... Medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War - an exhibit of the museum "Loyal Sons of Russia"

Target of our work: to analyze the meaning of the medallion of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War.

To achieve this goal, the following were determined tasks:

1. Collect information about the soldier's personal identification mark - a medallion.

2. Study the materials about the soldier's medallion.

3. Determine the reasons for the absence of medallions in the soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Methods: study of theoretical material using Internet resources, literary sources, museum exhibits.

1. The introduction of soldiers' medallions.

By order of the NKO (People's Commissar of Defense) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics No. 138 of March 15, 1941, new medallions were introduced in the form of a plastic pencil case with a parchment paper insert. Also, the soldier's medallions of the 1941 model were made in metal and wooden versions. In the cavity of the medallion there was a paper insert of the established sample in two copies. The size of the paper insert is 40x180 mm.

Drawing 2 ... Capsule

The capsule was made of black or brown plastic and consisted of a body and a lid with a threaded connection to each other (Figure 2). Capsule length 50 mm. It should be noted that the paper insert intended for servicemen of the border units of the NKVD troops (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) had a slightly larger size: 53x280 mm and a vertical green stripe 5 mm wide along its entire length. In terms of content, both paper inserts were almost identical.

On the insert form (Figure 3), in the appropriate columns, the soldier entered:

· Full Name;

· year of birth;

· military rank;

· Native - republic, territory, region, city, district, village council, village;

· Information about the family: address, surname, name, patronymic of the wife, next of kin;

What kind of RVC is called (regional military registration and enlistment office);

· Blood group according to Yansky (from I to IV).

Drawing3 ... Liner blank

It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit.

There are insert forms on various paper, where the clerk entered the necessary columns by hand, or filled in the entire medallion from the words of the soldier (there were many illiterate soldiers among the soldiers).

2. Reasons for the absence of medallions among soldiers of the Great Patriotic War.

Since the inception of the search movement, search engines have wondered: Why are so few killed people carrying mortal medallions? Not everyone knows this even now.

1. Due to the unavailability of information about the events of those years, a version was born that lives on today. There was a total superstition among the soldiers: if you carry a mortal medallion with you, you will be killed. The medallion is needed only in one case - if you are killed. To a certain extent, such a sign came from this. The medallions were called "death row". Many soldiers went into battle without a "suicide bomber"; they simply threw it away or did not fill out the insert forms. The Poles, for example, before the Second World War also had such medallions, but in Polish they were called "immortelles". This is a fundamentally different attitude.

In fact, in difficult front-line conditions, practical soldiers found the use of medallion capsules for other purposes. For example, if you cut off the bottom of a capsule and cut an insert with a thin hole out of wood, you will get a mouthpiece, and you can smoke precious tobacco without a trace. And the insert itself, in extreme cases, could come in handy for a roll-up. It is convenient to store sewing and gramophone needles, threads and other small household items in a whole capsule. Including, sometimes vital. Cases of fish hook medallion capsules are known to be found.

2. But these are not the main reasons for the lack of medallions in the dead. One of the main reasons is the imperfection and frequently changing system of accounting for the personnel of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army. In search practice, very rarely, the owners of found medallions are counted as dead or missing in 1941.

The main reason is that medallions have not yet been issued to the overwhelming majority of servicemen. The state of affairs improved only with the stabilization of the front and the restoration of factories and plants. As a result, identification medallions were issued more or less regularly during the incomplete 1942. And the war, as you know, lasted four years. This is one of the main reasons for the lack of medallions among the victims.

Contrary to superstition, the soldiers tried not to be unidentified in case of death, and relatives or friends were informed about their fate. Many facts speak convincingly about this. For example, in the absence of a capsule, the soldiers used the cartridge case as its capacity. In the absence of a standard form, the fighters wrote down their data on any piece of paper.

3. The inserts of the medallions were very often taken out without tearing off the halves (empty capsules), and more often they were simply taken away with the capsule. This is the third circumstance that explains the fact that most of the remains of the dead are found without medallions or with empty capsules. The latter circumstance suggests that the dead, found without medallions, for the most part, according to the registration documents, are not considered missing, but killed and even buried.

Modern spectral instruments make it possible to read texts made with graphite, ink or printing ink without any particular difficulty, even if the text has faded significantly. Texts made with plant-based ink are more difficult to read, since they fade away and are washed out almost completely as a result of prolonged exposure to unfavorable conditions.

In the event of the death of a serviceman, one copy of the insert was seized by the funeral team and handed over to the unit headquarters. The second - remained in the medallion with the deceased. But in reality, in conditions of hostilities, this requirement was practically not fulfilled, the medallion was confiscated entirely. On the basis of inserts taken from the medallions, the names of the dead who remained on the battlefield were established, and lists of irrecoverable losses were drawn up.

It should be noted that during the Great Patriotic War, medallions with wooden and metal cases were used in some units. As a rule, the liners are poorly retained in them.

In November 1942, by order of the NKO (People's Commissar of Defense) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics No. 376, the medallions were removed from the supply (Table 1).

Table 1.

Orders of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR

The medallion has been canceled. Motivation - a Red Army book is enough, but some servicemen during 1943, on their own initiative, continued to store medallions.

The cancellation of the medallion led to an increase in the number of missing servicemen due to the impossibility of identifying the deceased.

First: more than 70 years have passed since the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

Second: for example, they found a medallion, a capsule - it is intact and unbroken. Inside there should be a standard piece of paper with text, which should be filled in with a pencil (Figure 4).

Drawing 4 ... Pencil

The pencil is better preserved. Pencil writing is much better in one turn. And if it is written with an ordinary fountain pen, then the ink is blurry. There is a medallion, an ebonite capsule opens, and then it turns out that the capsule is either empty (supposedly death could have been cheated by throwing a piece of paper out of there), or paper dust is pouring out of it.

The loyal sons of Russia museum exhibit - a soldier's medallion - is interesting and unique. The Great Patriotic War is unlikely to ever end, it will not end not only in the memory of the people and in the history of our country, but also from the point of view of those soldiers who still need to be found and buried. Museums store a lot of information about the past, the present, and it is very important to acquaint children and adults with the exhibits and their history in order to remember the history of our country, so that the irreparable will not be repeated ...

As the great Russian commander Alexander Suvorov said: "The war ends the day the last soldier who fought in it is buried".

Soldier's Medallion

Vitaly Ivanov

A soldier's medallion is raised.

And there is hope

Replenish the list of names

From that endless war.

Find out who is in full growth

Went to the last fight

And who is now among the birches

Lies in the ground damp.

MORTAL MEDALLION

Vyacheslav Kondratyev

He was given to us - black, shiny,

Looks like a lipstick case ...

Ahead, then, the battle is on

And you need to keep it tight.

It contains a surname, blood according to Yansky,

Age - twenty short years ...

Why is it not clear to me

No graphs for your beloved?

After all, when you get off the ground,

Overcoming fear and trembling,

Don't you remember her

Don't you call her?

Wouldn't it matter

People will find out later -

Whom among the trench everyday

Did you go to defend every day?

And now, without fear of the consequences -

I won't be alive then -

I write ... And let it be known

The name of the one who did not become a wife ...

Bibliography

1. Documents of the group of military archeology "Seeker".

2. "Antiquities and Antiquities", articles about Soldier's medallions.

3. "Names from soldiers' medallions" / Compiled by: A.Yu. Konoplev, R.R. Salakhiev. - Kazan: "Fatherland", 2005.

4. Mortal medallions. Portal creator = SF = Veles // SPB.RU. [Electronic resource] - Access mode. - URL: http://www.hranitels.ru (date of access 15.02.2012).

Direct and indirect evidence in establishing the identity of a serviceman.

All finds, allowing to establish information about their owners, are classified into direct and indirect evidence in establishing the identity of their owner.
Named finds (spoons, mugs, pots, etc.) are indirect evidence in establishing the identity of the victims.
To establish the identity of the remains to a specific person and the name of the deceased, it is necessary to have finds that are direct evidence of this, namely: documents proving the identity of the serviceman. Such finds for the Red Army soldiers, first of all, are mortal medallions, and for the Wehrmacht servicemen - identification tokens. Along with mortal medallions, direct evidence in establishing the identity of a deceased serviceman is identity documents issued by various instances and departments in the name of a specific person, provided that this document is found along with the remains and subsequent confirmation from any sources about the fact and the place of death of this person. Such documents can be a Red Army book, a military ID, various certificates, party and Komsomol cards, etc.

Even such a find can be used to establish the name and fate of the soldier.

But these are not the main reasons for the lack of medallions among the killed.
One of the main reasons is the imperfection and frequently changing system of registration of the personnel of the Red Army. This is convincingly evidenced by the table below of the chronology of NCO orders regarding the registration of personnel and irrecoverable losses of the Red Army.

As can be seen from the table, the rank and file of the Red Army during the Finnish War and until the spring of 1941 legally did not have any identity documents. The results of the Finnish campaign showed the inadmissibility of such a situation. Despite an attempt to rectify the situation, due to various circumstances (sluggishness, confusion of the beginning of the war, etc.), including practically the whole of 1941, the servicemen were left without medallions, as evidenced by the results of the search work no less convincingly. In search practice, very rarely, the owners of found medallions are counted as dead or missing in 41st. The main reason for this is that medallions have not yet been issued to the overwhelming majority of servicemen. The state of affairs improved only with the stabilization of the front and the restoration of factories and plants. As a result, identification medallions were issued more or less regularly during the incomplete 1942. And the war, as you know, lasted four years. This is one of the main reasons for the lack of medallions among the victims.
Contrary to superstition, the soldiers tried not to be unidentified in case of death, and relatives or friends were informed about their fate. Many facts speak convincingly about this. For example, in the absence of a capsule, the soldiers used the cartridge case as its capacity.
In the absence of a standard form, the fighters wrote down their data on any piece of paper.
Another, no less important, reason for the absence of mortal medallions from the dead is the bad execution of the system for recording irrecoverable losses in the Red Army.
According to the regulation of the NCO, which determines the procedure for removing corpses from the battlefields and their burial, the funeral team before burying the corpses had to tear off one copy of the form for transfer to the unit headquarters as confirmation of the death of a soldier and accounting for losses. The second copy, in order not to depersonalize the corpses, was ordered to be put back into the capsule and left in the victim's pocket (see below the text of the document). In difficult combat conditions, which especially distinguished the first two years of the war, this condition was often fulfilled poorly, and often not at all. Funeral teams, which did not exist in the list of units, did not always have the opportunity to carry out the burial properly. This also explains the presence of many "mounted" killed and somehow buried in "improvised" graves.
Medallion inserts were very often removed without tearing off the halves (empty capsules), and more often they were simply taken away with the capsule. This is the third circumstance that explains the fact that most of the remains of the dead are found without medallions or with empty capsules. The latter circumstance suggests that the dead, found without medallions, for the most part, according to the registration documents, are not missing, but killed and even buried.
There are other reasons for the presence of empty capsules in the remains. For example, in the capsule, the soldier put a non-standard note that was retrieved by the funeral team.
Below is a slightly abbreviated text of the REGULATIONS ON PERSONAL ACCOUNTING OF LOSSES AND BURIALS OF THE DEATED PERSONAL STAFF OF THE RED ARMY DURING WAR TIME, announced with the order of the NCO No. 138 of 03/15/1941 on the introduction of the regulation and the supply of troops with medallions and loose leaflets.

Section 1.

General position.
1.1. The regulation on the personal registration of losses and the burial of the deceased personnel of the Red Army in wartime determines the system of personal registration of losses at the front, the procedure for burying the dead and establishes the rules for notifying the population of the country about the fate of their relatives - servicemen of the active army.
1.3. Notification of the family of a deceased soldier is a document for filing a petition for a pension.

Section 2.
Personal registration in military units, formations and institutions of the Red Army.
2.4. every commander and chief, starting with the squad leader and above, under any battle conditions is obliged to keep accurate records of the personnel of the subunit or unit subordinate to him.
The personal record should indicate: in what battles and where the fighter participated, the junior commander, how he behaved in these battles (brave - loyal to the Motherland; coward - deserter).
When leaving the unit (due to injury, illness), the characteristics of the behavior of a soldier in battle should be concentrated in the headquarters, unit.
2.5. the replenishment arriving at the unit and part of it is taken on a personal account before it is put into battle ...
2.6. at the end of each battle, the commander of the subunit, the unit checks the personnel and immediately reports on the command about irrecoverable losses.

Accounting at the headquarters of the regiment (separate unit).
2.11. personal registration of losses at the headquarters of the regiment and a separate unit is made according to the personal lists of personal losses in the units that are part of the regiment (a separate unit), and on the basis of checking the personnel of some units for a sample.
2.12. After the exact establishment of personal losses through strict control, the regiment headquarters announces in the regiment order a list of those who left the regiment, makes changes to the regiment headquarters accounting documents and submits a list of personal losses of all regiment personnel to the division headquarters every three days (form 2).
2.13. Upon establishing the death of a serviceman and the place of his burial, the regiment headquarters (separate unit) immediately sends a notification (form 4, "funeral" - author's note) directly to relatives at their place of residence - to the commanding staff of the cadre (regular servicemen, as a rule, officers - author's note) and junior commanders of long-term service; to the district military commissariat - to the rank and file and junior commanders of the conscript service and the reserve.
2.14. Servicemen, missing, are counted at the headquarters of the regiment within 15 days as temporarily retired. ..
After a 15-day period, the missing are entered into the list of irrecoverable losses, units are excluded from the lists with a report on command.
After 45 days, relatives are notified of the missing. If later the fate of the missing servicemen is clarified, then additional information is immediately reported about them both on command and to the RVC or relatives.
2.15. The commander of the regiment (separate unit) is fully responsible for the accurate accounting of losses in the regiment and for the timely reporting of losses to the division headquarters.
Approx. the author - this procedure worked well in the rear units and aviation, in the infantry, especially during the period of active hostilities, for 15 and 45 days a lot changed and did not have time, which is one of the reasons why many relatives did not receive notifications.

Registration at the headquarters of the division (brigade), corps.
2.16. Personal registration of losses at the headquarters of the division (brigade), corps is made according to the personal lists of personal losses of units that make up the division (brigade), corps, according to the medallion inserts seized from the servicemen who died in the division's zone of action, and according to the personal lists of personal personal losses. the composition of the headquarters of the division (brigade), corps.
2. 17. After the establishment of personal losses through strict control by the division headquarters, the corps compiles personal lists (form 2A) of irrecoverable losses (killed, dead from wounds, missing and taken prisoner, approx. Author - numerical data) for all parts , including the rear services that are part of the division (brigade), and are sent three times a month by the 1st, 10th and 20th day of each month to the Directorate for Manning the Troops of the General Staff of the Red Army (GUK). The headquarters of the corps presents named lists of losses only for the management of the corps, corps units and rear medical institutions directly subordinate to the corps.
Approx. ed. - similar accounting requirements were prescribed to the headquarters of armies, fronts and medical institutions.

Registration in the district (city) military commissariat.
2.25. The district (city) military commissar keeps the received notifications from military units on the killed, died from wounds, missing servicemen for registration, and issues a notification from the district military registration and enlistment office to the relatives of the serviceman (form 4) ...
2.26. In the event of the return of a soldier from the front, to which a notification was sent by the military unit as a deceased, the RVC finds out the reason for his return and immediately informs the Staffing Directorate of the General Staff of the spacecraft, at the same time establishes the correctness of the receipt of the pension by his family.
2.27. The rayvoenkom systematically monitors the correctness of the appointment and issuance of pensions by the rayon security service to the families of the dead servicemen.
Approx. ed. The Pension Regulations are currently legally binding. The relatives of the victims found by the search engines, according to the registration documents listed as missing, have the legal right to apply for a pension and compensation for the past years.

Section 3.
Appointment of medallions with information about military personnel.
3.28. To account for the losses of personnel in wartime and in order to instill skills in storing the medallion even in peacetime, each serviceman from the moment of his arrival at the unit is issued a medallion with a loose leaf in two copies, which is recorded in the clothing certificate and kept with him until he is retired ...
The presence of the medallion and the correctness of the filling of the insert are periodically checked by the Red Army and junior command personnel at the morning examination, and by the commanding personnel - when the unit leaves the field, for tactical exercises.
When a soldier is transferred to another part, the medallion is entered into the serviceman's clothing certificate.
The medallion is worn in a special pocket sewn on the outside of the belt of the trousers (on the right side).
The medallion insert is filled in duplicate. One copy of the medallion insert from the killed and those who died from wounds is taken out and stored at the headquarters of the unit or a medical institution, and the second copy, folded into a medallion, remains with the killed or died from wounds.
3.29. The teams, dressed up to clear the battlefields, take out one copy of the medallion insert from the dead and transfer it to the headquarters of the unit, by order of which they cleared the battlefield.
3.30. The death of a serviceman is reported by the part to which the teams after the clearing of the battlefield were transferred by the insert of the medallion removed from the killed, regardless of which part the soldier belonged to.
3.31. The inserts taken from the medallions of the killed servicemen are kept by the unit commanders at the unit headquarters, on the basis of which lists are drawn up (form 2) and sent to the division headquarters. Individual units that are not part of the division submit lists (Form 2) to the headquarters of the unit to which they are directly subordinate.
3.32. The head of transport accompanying them is obliged to report in detail to the person receiving the wounded about the persons who died of wounds on the way to medical institutions, about the number of those who died on the way, where they were left for burial (or buried) and by whose order and where they will be buried ... one copy of the medallion insert taken from the deceased on the way shall be handed over to the person receiving the wounded. If the deceased does not have a medallion on the way, the accompanying person is obliged to take measures to establish the identity of the deceased. The head of the medical institution informs about the dead on the way (form 3) on a par with the dead in the hospital.

Section 4.
Accounting for losses in the Manning Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army.
3.33. Personal records of the losses of the personnel of the Red Army (killed, died of wounds, missing, taken prisoner) is concentrated in the Directorate for Manning the Troops of the General Staff of the Red Army.
3.34. The Troops Manning Directorate is responsible for:
- keep a personal record of the losses of the Red Army for individual units and formations (division, brigade, corps, army, front) and a reference card file of losses of personnel of the Red Army during hostilities;
- to compile alphabetical lists of casualties of the Red Army personnel and provide information on the requests of relatives and institutions about those killed at the front ...

Deputy Chief
Of the General Staff of the Red Army
Lieutenant General V. Sokolovsky.
TsAMO RF, f. 4, op. 12, d. 97, l. 263-272. Script.

The document is presented with some abbreviations, section 5 has been omitted, which defines the procedure for burying those killed in battle.
In November 1942, for unknown reasons, the medallions were canceled, which led to an increase in the number of unidentified deaths. A Red Army book remained as an identity card for private and junior command personnel.

MEDALLIONS,
DOCUMENTS CERTIFYING THE PERSONALITY OF MILITARY SERVICES IN THE RKKA

Medallion arr. 1925 "incense"
The soldier's medallion was used to identify the servicemen of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army who died during the hostilities. Introduced by the Order of the RVS dated 14.08.25, No. 856 as an identity document. It was issued to all servicemen of military units after arriving at their unit when they were enrolled in the service.
The medallion is made of tin in the form of a flat box measuring 50x33x4 mm with a braid to be worn on the chest. It contained a special form of parchment, made by typographic method. Very often, forms were printed on plain newsprint. When using this type of medallion, in the course of hostilities, it turned out that the medallion was leaking and the parchment sheet quickly deteriorated. In 1937, this type of medallion was removed from the army's allowance in connection with the political processes of the 30s.
These medallions, although rare, are found among soldiers who died in the Great Patriotic War.

Medallion arr. 1941 g.
Order of the NCO of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41 introduced the "Regulations on the personal registration of losses and burial of the deceased personnel of the Red Army in wartime" and new medallions in the form of an ebonite pencil case with an insert on parchment paper in two copies. On the form of the insert, in the appropriate columns, the soldier entered:
- Full Name
- year of birth
- military rank
- native - republic, territory, region, city, district, s / council, village
- family information: address, full name wife, next of kin
- what kind of RVC is called (district military registration and enlistment office)
- blood group according to Jansky (from I to IV)
It was forbidden to indicate the name of the military unit. There are surrogate forms on various paper, where the clerk entered the necessary columns by hand, or filled out the entire medallion from the words of the soldier (there were many illiterate soldiers among the soldiers)
According to clause 28 of the Regulation, one copy of the insert was seized by the funeral team and handed over to the unit headquarters. The second - remained in the medallion with the deceased. On the basis of inserts taken from the medallions, the names of the dead who remained on the battlefield were established, and lists of losses were compiled. But in reality, in conditions of hostilities, this requirement was not fulfilled, the medallion was withdrawn entirely. In addition, soldiers were often given only one copy of the insert due to a shortage of them.
Many soldiers went into battle without a suicide bomber. The very fact of their issuance was an infrequent matter, especially since the fall of 1941. Moreover, there was superstition among the soldiers, if you fill in the insert, they will kill you. Often the medallions were simply thrown away. In the capsules themselves, needles, matches, and tobacco were worn.
In November 1942, the NKO Order No. 376 "On the removal of medallions from the supply of the Red Army" was issued. This led to an increase in the number of missing servicemen due to the impossibility of identifying the victim.

Standard hexagonal ebony medallion Medallion insert on parchment paper "Blockade" medallion Sailors medallions
Wooden medallion
Wooden capsules were machined from different types of wood without impregnation in the form of a composite pencil case from a tube and a lid in conditions when it was impossible to organize the production of ebony capsules and supply them to the units of the active Army in the conditions of the outbreak of war. Alas, they passed moisture well through the body and did not ensure the integrity of the liner either. They were made both in small factories and factories, and in small workshops and artels.

Steel medallion

Another type of "suicide bombers" were cylinders made of copper or brass tubes with or without thread and a cover (plug). There was a kind of metal capsule with a groove on the tube and a protrusion on the lid: after putting the lid on the tube, by turning the lid, it was fixed on the tube by entering the protrusion into the groove.
Homemade medallions
Quite often, empty cartridge cases played the role of medallions. The most "popular" among them were cases from revolvers of the "Nagant" system, Mosin rifles ("three-line"), as well as from the German 98k carbine and even from the Soviet TT pistol. Revolving and German carbine casings, as less common for ordinary Soviet soldiers, were specially used by them to make it easier for the funeral team to quickly find the desired "suicide bomber" among the belongings and ammunition of the deceased soldier. The following items could be used as plugs for the sleeves to prevent moisture ingress: a bullet inserted into the sleeve with a sharp end, followed by compression of the sleeve with pliers or without it; a pencil inserted with a lead inside the sleeve; wooden cork from scrap materials

Red Army book
Introduced by the Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR of October 7, 1941 as a document proving the identity of the Red Army soldier and junior commander. The issuance of a Red Army book in exchange for a military card or registration certificate was carried out by the part to which the Red Army soldier arrived from the district military registration and enlistment office. Sending Red Army men and junior commanders to the front without Red Army books was strictly prohibited. Identity cards were issued to officers as personal documents.
The Red Army books were confiscated from those killed and those who died of wounds and were handed over to the headquarters of a unit or a medical institution, where, on their basis, lists of irrecoverable losses of personnel were drawn up.

The Battle for the Caucasus is one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War. Apart from the blockade of Leningrad, none of the battles of this war lasted so long. From July 25, 1942 to October 9, 1943, for 422 days and nights, stubborn battles were fought on the plains of the North Caucasus and mountain passes of the Main Caucasian ridge, in the Azov and Black Seas, in the sky over the Kuban. The losses of the Red Army in this battle amounted to more than 800 thousand people, while today the remains of only 115 thousand defenders of the Fatherland lie in single and fraternal graves on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers have not yet been buried. The great commander of Russia A.V. Suvorov said: "The war is not over until the last soldier is buried." The Great Patriotic War is not over, it continues, and not only because the soldiers' bones to this day turn white on the mountain slopes and are plowed every year by tractors on the collective farm fields of the Krasnodar Territory, but also because the "echo of war" is still thundering explosions of ammunition that did not explode then, again and again claiming human lives.
The war continues, and as in any war, there are soldiers in it, on whose shoulders all the hardships and hardships fall. Only now, six decades later, they have in their hands not rifles and machine guns, but metal detectors and shovels, and their name is search engines. These are people for whom search work has become a lifelong affair. What makes them, risking their lives, go to the place where battles raged almost six decades ago, swept over cubic meters in search of the remains of soldiers, this is not understandable to an ordinary person. A search engine is, first of all, a state of mind and, of course, experience and knowledge acquired over the years. It is enough once to see the eyes of the people to whom the guys returned a family member who was considered missing in order to understand that their work is not in vain. But up to this point, there is a difficult path to go from studying archival documents to field search work, discovering the remains of soldiers and establishing their names.
The names of the soldiers are established both by personal personal belongings and by the numbers of awards, but the most reliable way is to establish the name by the soldier's medallion. In November 1942, the order of the NKO of the USSR No. 376 "On the removal of medallions from supply" was issued. This has led to an increase in the already huge number of missing soldiers. It is difficult to understand what the authors of the unreasonable decision were guided by, but if they believed that with the introduction of the Red Army book containing all the necessary data about the fighter by order of NCO No. 330, the need to duplicate this information in the medallion disappeared, their “holy naivety” was very expensive. On the territory of the region, hostilities were mainly conducted after the notorious order. Practical experience shows that in the Kuban a soldier's medallion can be found only in one case out of eighty, this explains the low rate of identifying the names of the dead in comparison with other regions of the Russian Federation, where hostilities were fought in 1941-1942.
Even if you are lucky and managed to find a soldier's medallion, this does not guarantee that the soldier's name will be returned, and a family member will be returned to the relatives. If water has entered the capsule with a paper insert or condensation has accumulated in it, it will be damaged. Mishandling the medallion can also damage the paper insert. This methodological manual contains the experience accumulated by the search associations of Russia in identifying the identity of the discovered servicemen who died during the Second World War. Servicemen of the Romanian, Slovak, Hungarian and other armies took part in the hostilities on the territory of the Krasnodar Territory on the side of fascist Germany, therefore it would be correct to describe the experience gained not only in establishing the names of soldiers and officers of the Red Army, but also of all other armies that took part in the Battle of the Caucasus.

1. HISTORY OF THE CREATION OF PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION SIGNS (LOS)

The problem of accounting for irrecoverable losses and identifying the personalities of the victims is more than one hundred years old. In different states, it was solved in different ways. The warriors of Genghis Khan, leaving for the battle, left the stones, and when they returned, they took them back. The number of stones remaining indicated the death toll. However, this method only gave an idea of ​​the number of dead soldiers and did not allow establishing their names. In Russia, in the same period, each warrior wore two icons on his body, one with the image of the patron saint of the principality, of which he was a warrior, and the other with the face of the patron saint of the owner's name. Thus, during the funeral service for the fallen, the names of the soldiers and the names of their principalities were pronounced. In conditions of a small population and a large variety of names, this method partially justified itself, but at the same time it was imperfect.
The first attempts to create personal identification marks have their roots in Germany in the mid-60s of the 19th century. It was then that a certain Berlin shoemaker, whose sons served in the Prussian army and went to war, made tin tags for them. With their help, someone had to identify the sons in case of their death and notify the father in Berlin.
The shoemaker was so proud of his invention that he dared to turn to the Prussian War Ministry with a proposal to introduce similar signs throughout the Prussian army. The proposal was sensible, but the shoemaker came up with an unsuccessful argument. He referred to the successful experience of using special dog tags in Prussia for keeping track of them and collecting taxes from owners. When the discussion of the new idea in the Ministry of War reached the king, the king of Prussia, who adored his soldiers, Wilhelm I, was simply enraged by the proposal to put "dog tags" on them. Only after some time did he still allow himself to be convinced of the usefulness of this idea and, for the sake of experiment, agreed to the introduction of personal identification marks in some parts of the Prussian army.
This is the legend. In fact, the introduction of the first personal identification marks during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 met with massive rejection of the innovation from even the most disciplined Prussian soldiers. They were simply thrown away the LOZs given to them in droves, at best they were "forgotten" in the wagon train. The fact is that any soldier in war sooner or later becomes superstitious, especially with regard to death. Therefore, the requirement of the commanders to carry on themselves the "messenger of death" caused a superstitious fear among the Prussian soldiers that it was this "messenger" that would bring on them a quick death. Only the active propaganda by the Wehrmacht officers among their soldiers of the need to constantly wear the LOZ, as a guarantee that the soldier's relatives would receive a pension in the event of his death, turned the tide and wearing personal identification marks became the norm. The order of the War Ministry of the Prussian army of April 29, 1869 obliged each soldier to wear a tin tag on his naked body under his uniform with a string indicating the part and number of the owner of the sign in the lists of this part.
The appearance on January 10, 1878 of a new military medical charter stipulated a change in the shape of the LOZ from rectangular to oval, which it remained later. In 1914, Germany abandoned the system of applying only the name of the unit and the personal number of the owner to the personal identification mark, which entailed an increase in the size of the mark, and in 1915 a single size of the LOZ was established. On September 16, 1917, there was an instruction to duplicate the inscriptions on the upper and lower parts of the LOZ, and for the convenience of breaking them, divide the sign with three narrow slots along the long axis of the oval. It remained in this form until 1945.
In Russia, the first attempts to introduce personal identification marks were made during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. It was then, before being sent to the theater of military operations in Bulgaria, that all soldiers and officers received metal tokens with a cord to wear around their necks. They were stamped with letters - abbreviations of the regiment's name (for example: L.G.E.P. - Life Guards Jaeger Regiment), battalion number, company number and serviceman's personal number. Lists of soldiers and officers with an indication of their personal numbers were kept in the regimental office. This was done to identify the killed and wounded. However, then this innovation did not become widespread, and over time it was completely forgotten.
In the last days of the existence of the tsarist empire, the Minister of War, General of Infantry, Belyaev, signed a special order: "On the 16th day of January 1917, the Sovereign Emperor ordered the establishment of a special cervical sign to identify the wounded and killed, as well as to mark the St. with this drawing. With such the highest will I declare to the military department with the indication that the sign should be worn on a snuria or a braid worn around the neck, and the record enclosed in it should be printed on parchment paper. " The cervical mark was an amulet with a form inside, the size of a tram ticket. The soldier had to manage to write in a lot of information about himself in beaded and preferably calligraphic handwriting. Indicate your regiment, company, squadron or hundred, rank, name, surname, awards, religion, estate, province, county, volost and village. At that time, only a small part of the manufactured signs had time to leave for the troops.
Eight years later, the royal neck badge began to be used both in the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army and the Navy as an identity document and for identification purposes by order of the Revolutionary Military Council No. 856 dated 14.08.25. From that moment on, it became known as the "soldier's medallion". A new piece of equipment and an indefinite item was issued to all military personnel and civilians. The medallion belonged to service items and, in case of loss, was replaced with a new one. During the Finnish campaign, it turned out that the medallion was not hermetically sealed and, in combat conditions, the paper insert spreads beyond recognition. It was canceled in March 1941. At the same time, by another order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41, a medallion of a different type was introduced into the troops. It was with him that the Red Army met the war.
In the cavity of a soldier's medallion, sample 1941, the soldier, the officer kept two forms with personal biographical data. If he died, then one copy was to be removed by the funeral team at the headquarters of the unit, thus the losses were recorded and their lists were compiled. Well, the second was supposed to be left in the medallion with the deceased. In the conditions of hostilities, this requirement was practically not met. The whole medallion was taken from the soldier. And there were one more nameless soldiers.
You should not blame someone for carelessness or incompetence here. The instruction was first of all violated due to the complex use of the official thing, which was not perfect in other senses. It took too many steps to retrieve the locket from the deceased. First, find it in one of the pockets, remove the screw cover of the case, pull out one of the blanks, leaving the other one, close it again and finally put it back in your pocket. Not everyone could stand the long procedure under machine-gun fire. In November 1942, by Order of the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR No. 376 "On the Removal of Medallions from Supply", the soldier's medallions were canceled. Soldiers' medallions, outcast in the very middle of the war years, never returned to the rank and file of either the Soviet or Russian army.

The soldier's medallion, introduced by the Order of the RVS No. 856 dated 14.08.25, was a tin box measuring 50x33x4 mm with an eyelet for braid (Fig. 1). A paper insert was placed inside.
By order of the NKO of the USSR No. 138 of 03/15/41, new medallions were introduced in the form of a plastic case with a paper insert (Fig. 2). Also, the soldier's medallions of the 1941 model were made in metal and wooden versions. Despite such a variety of designs, plastic soldier's medallions are most often found on the territory of the region. In the cavity of the medallion there was a paper insert of the established sample (Fig. 3), containing information about the surname, first name, patronymic, military rank, date of birth, address of the owner and his immediate family. The size of the paper insert is 40x180 mm. The capsule is made of black or brown plastic and consists of a body and a lid with a threaded connection. Capsule length 50 mm. It should be noted that the paper insert, intended for servicemen of the border units of the NKVD troops, had a slightly larger size: 53x280 mm and a vertical green strip 5 mm wide along its entire length. In terms of content, both paper inserts were almost identical. In November 1942, by Order of the NKO of the USSR No. 376, the medallions were removed from the supply.
At the same time, in various districts of the Krasnodar Territory, there were cases of discovery of soldier's medallions of an unspecified sample, manufactured at the factory (Fig. 4). These personal identification marks are made of aluminum alloy, and despite the difference in shape, they are similar in content. There is a 5 mm hole in the upper part. LOZ contains information about the actual or conditional name of the military unit and the personal number of the owner.
One of the forms of homemade soldier's medallions became notes containing information about the owner inserted into the cartridge cases, while their muzzle, as a rule, was closed by a bullet turned upside down.