Hero City

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Hero city ( russ город-герой / " gorod-geroi ") is an honorary title that was awarded to cities in the Soviet Union , "for the heroism of their defenders in the Great Patriotic War " against the attacks of the Wehrmacht . A total of 12 cities and the Brest Fortress (Heroes' Fortress ) received this title. There were comparable honors in other countries.

Soviet honors

All honorary titles were awarded at the same time with the Order of Lenin , the “ Golden Star ” medal and a certificate from the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union . From then on, the hero city was entitled to display the Lenin Order and the “Golden Star” medal in its city flag. (Today only Sevastopol, Stalingrad / Volgograd, Kerch and Tula make use of this; the other cities have replaced them with tsar's crown, double-headed eagle and / or saints. Kerch is a specialty, as it carries the tsar's crown together with the "Golden Star" order .) In addition, an obelisk with images of these awards and the inscription of the text of the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was erected in the Hero City . Because of the exceptional services of its defenders, the Brest Fortress was given the honorary title of “Heroes' Fortress”. All hero cities are honored with memorial stones on the Kremlin wall and on officially minted coins.

A comparable honorary title is the award “City of Military Glory” (Russian: “ Город воинской славы ”) introduced by Russia for cities that are not heroic cities, but whose inhabitants showed particular courage during World War II .

Appointments during World War II

Appointments after World War II

  • Brest Fortress , May 8, 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War for the resistance against the attack by the Germans
  • Kiev , May 8, 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War for the resistance in the Battle of Kiev
  • Moscow , May 8, 1965, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War for the defense of the Battle of Moscow
  • Kerch , September 14, 1973, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Caucasus and the liberation of Crimea
  • Novorossiysk , September 14, 1973, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the end of the Battle of the Caucasus and the liberation of Crimea
  • Minsk , June 26, 1974, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus
  • Tula , December 7, 1976
  • Murmansk , May 6, 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War for the defense of the ice-free port at the German company Silberfuchs
  • Smolensk , May 6, 1985, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War for the merits in the Battle of Smolensk

gallery

  • Cities of Heroes (Soviet stamp issue 1965)

  • Brest

  • Kiev

  • Odessa

  • Leningrad

  • Moscow

  • Sevastopol

  • Volgograd

Hero city of Leipzig

During the Monday demonstrations in 1989 , which provided a decisive impetus for the turning point in the GDR, Leipzig was referred to as a city of heroes, based on the Soviet example. The informal award for the courageous and peaceful commitment of many Leipzig citizens, including Kurt Masur, in the area around Leipzig's Nikolaikirche shaped the city's reputation after the fall of the Wall and is taken up in the city's marketing with the slogan "Leipziger Freiheit".

Comparable awards in other countries

In Italy , the city of Ravenna and the province of Arezzo received the Medal of Valor .

Great Britain awarded the island of Malta the George Cross in 1942 .

Yugoslavia awarded the Order of the People's Hero to the cities of Belgrade , Zagreb , Ljubljana , Novi Sad , Prilep , Priština , Titov Drvar and Cetinje in 1974 and 1975 .

Cuba gives the title of Hero City to famous cities in military history, such as Santiago de Cuba for his position in the struggle for independence against Spain, during the Spanish-American War and the Cuban Revolution .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russia News , accessed on August 15, 2011.
  2. ↑ rt.com , accessed on 15 August 2011th
  3. ↑ German-Russian Museum Berlin Karlshorst ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed August 15, 2011.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museum-karlshorst.de
  4. ^ Speitkamp, ​​Winfried: War and memory: case studies on the 19th and 20th centuries. - Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2000. p. 157.
  5. ^ [1] Leipzig Hero City of the GDR Shield for the Leipzig Monday demonstrations. Leipzig, 1989, exhibit in the House of History, Bonn EB-No .: 1990/7/401, accessed 10/2008.
  6. ↑ Social Geography Discussions, 2, 129–160, 2006, Heldenstadt Leipzig and Weihnachtsland Erzgebirge - On the imagery of linguistic spatial constructions F. Meyer zu Schwabedissen, M. Micheel, ditto on the blog http://www.heldenstadt.de/