I´m at a loss on this one. I can`t find anything on it online and curiosity is getting the best of me about it. Most commemorative coins have a title of sorts about the coin, but I can´t find anything on it. About all I know about it is that it´s German (East?) commemorative for the ending of WW2 (?) and contains silver but has no monetary value stamped on it nor anything on the rim. I`m hoping that someone can shed some informative light about this piece or point me in the right direction if nothing else. On the front it reads "25. JAHRESTAG DES SIEGES ÜBER DEN NATIONALSOZIALISMUS" with the date of 5.MAI 1945. On the rear is "MICHELS DANKGEBET" 5.MAI 1970. Many thanks to yall in advance.
That's a Russian soldier commemorating the end of WW II, isn't it? 25th anniversary of the end of the war? Steve
Looking again, the side with the date reads, in German, 25th Anniversary of Victory over National Socialism (Nazism). Steve
My German isn't what it was 40 years ago in college, but the other side says "Lord we thank you for your (unclear). On the other side of the praying man the lettering is too fuzzy in the photograph to translate it. Steve
5 to the left of the man it says "Herr wir danken für die Befreiung" on his right it says "doch nun befreie uns den Befreiern". My bad I thought I put that in earlier. So basically its a commemorative coin of the end of WW2. Never had a coin like this. got it in a grab bag of 50 different reichmark coins spanning 1878 to 1978
Nah, I don't think that medal - the piece is certainly not a coin - is from the GDR. One side, the upper image, might have been OK there, although the old Reichstag building is in what was West Berlin then. But the other side, where it says "Lord, thank you for the liberation, but now makes us finally free from the liberators", no way. With such privately made medals it is hard to tell where they are from. Maybe the "altar details" provide some kind of clue ... By the way, the guy with the cap is the Michel, a somewhat ironic personification of the Germans. Christian
It was the East Germans who'd be keen to be freed from the liberators. The Ossie government might not have liked it but I could see such a piece being popular with the general population. The extreme theory is that it was a CIA Psyops production to foster discontent in East Germany.
Yeh, my guess is that the East German State (read USSR) wouldn't be encouraging prayer or thanks to God. Has to be some kind of private medal but seems a little tame as a psyops tool. Steve
Not tame, subtle. The Germans had not had the extra decades of anti religion that the Russians had had. Churches in communist Eastern Europe remained more of a force than the dedicated communists liked but as a matter of realpolitk they were generally tolerated. The system was inherently unstable or the final collapse would have taken decades, not weeks.
