1938 Austrian Annexation Medal

Product Description: This 1938 Austrian Annexation Medal is a great, representative example, in outstanding condition. The medal is a high quality piece, typical for the pre-war period, and is struck from a brass alloy (Tombak). Both sides of this medal feature attractive silver color and great original luster, with just a few small scattered marks and only a faint trace of toning from age. All of the original detail is still present. The medal retains its original suspension ring. This award is complete with its original, correct ribbon, which is full length. The ribbon is crisp, with only extremely slight age toning. This 1938 Austrian Annexation Medal is a textbook original, that displays great. The condition borders on excellent plus plus.

Historical Description: In 1938 and 1939, a triumphant, ascendant Germany used a combination of political/diplomatic pressure and military operations/threats to annex and occupy (or re-occupy) areas that were to become part of the Greater German Reich. To recognize these successes, the German government instituted a series of three medals, known as the German Occupation Medals (or “Flower War Medals). There were three of these awards, all with the same obverse design. They were designed by Professor Richard Klein of Munich, and featured two nude men, one bearing a Nazi flag, ascending a podium with the German eagle and swastika emblem. Each of the three different awards had a different date on the reverse (the date of the event each commemorated), and each had a different ribbon. The first of these medals to be instituted was the medal for the Austrian Anschluss, which appeared on May 1, 1938, and bore the date “13. März 1938.” It had a silver finish, and a red ribbon with white-black-white stripes at the edges. The next “Flower War” medal to be instituted, and the one awarded in the greatest numbers, came on October 18, 1938, to commemorate the occupation of the Sudetenland on October 1. It had a bronze finish and a red and black ribbon. The reverse of each of these bore the lettering “Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer” (One People, One Nation, One Leader” with German swastika emblems and the date of institution of the award. The last of these medals, the “Memel Medal,” was authorized on May 1, 1939, and commemorated the return of the Memel Territory on March 22, 1939. This medal had a different reverse, a bronze finish, and a ribbon with white, red, and green stripes. This medal was only awarded 31,322 times (compared to 318,689 awards of the Anschluss medal and 1,162,617 awards of the Sudetenland medal). Issue of “Flower Wars” medals ceased at the end of 1940.

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