Long before the Cold War, the highest honor of the Soviet Union, presented by Stalin himself, was accompanied by … a Hamilton watches.
American watches in the Soviet Union? Other than the wrist of regime apparatchiks, this might come as a surprise. But in 1941, relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were very different from what they would become afterwards and still are today with Russia. The break-up of the German-Soviet pact and the launch of Operation Barbarossa by the Nazi regime remained a turning point in World War II. On June 22, 1941, Hitler’s Germany attacked the Soviet Union, opening a second front. We all know the end of the story, but not always its twists and turns …
So, when we look at the USSR of the time, we discover an astonishing horological detail: the first Heroes of the Soviet Union, the ultimate reward granted by the Supreme Soviet, did not only receive the star of gold of the Order of Lenin. As a reward for the heroic acts of these Soviet fighters on the front, Stalin also gave them (a priori in person, propaganda obliges) an American watch! Hamilton identical to those supplied to American soldiers in the early days of the war. In total, the brand (now Swiss) will have delivered around 365,000 of these endowment military watches to the American forces, between the US Navy, US Army and USMC.
About 3000 of them, however, met a different fate in the Soviet Union. Because as soon as it entered the war against the Nazis, an association based in New York, the Roshan war relief fund, a branch of the American War Relief Committee (the largest American charity), will finance the sending of war material to the USSR. Against the Nazis, any help was welcome. “In the first shipments of military equipment to the Soviet Union, we thus find medicines, planes, tanks, weapons … And hundreds of watches”, explains Thierry Serna, specialist in military watches and creator of the watch site collection Mostra Store. Indeed, at the time, we did not know how to produce watches industrially in the Soviet Union. “
In this context, offering a watch in addition to a medal takes on its full value. These American Hamilton watches will therefore be offered as a reward to the best of the Soviet Union. What happened to them? Many of them have undoubtedly disappeared, buried, lost with their recipient. Only a handful keep the memory of this amazing award alive. Thierry Serna just discovered one of them a short time ago, a Hamilton USA type 987A from 1941, 34 mm in diameter, with 38 hours of power reserve, with a light silver dial and then enhanced hands. of radium. On the back of the case is engraved the words “героическому народу СССР, военный выпуск США”, “to the heroic people of the USSR, Russian War Relief”.
Inspected and overhauled, it still has all of its original parts and is in perfect working order. What is a timepiece as steeped in history as this worth today? It is currently offered for € 11,000 on the Mostra Store site, and deserves to end up in a museum or in a collection worthy of its rarity. In total, from its inception in 1934 until the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, there are only 12,500 Heroes of the Soviet Union, including around 100 fighter pilots. Only two men will be granted it four times, Marshal Zhukov and a certain… Leonid Brezhnev. A great lover of yachts, cars, and watches!
What is even less known than the history of these Hamilton watches offered to the Soviet Union in the midst of World War II is their influence on Soviet watchmaking as a whole. These few hundred watches offered by the United States undoubtedly made Stalin want to see the USSR produce his own. In its race for productivism, the order was given, in the midst of the war, at the end of 1941, to start manufacturing “distinctive” watches intended to reward acts and actions relating to the engagement of the population in the defense of the homeland. . “At one point, all the watches offered by the United States were distributed,” explains Thierry Serna. Stalin therefore asks Factory No. 1 to start producing the first Soviet honor watches. ” The factories of St Petersburg will take over thereafter, until today, where Raketa still exists.
The Soviet Union obliges, these tribute watches will generally be struck with a red star, a symbol of the unity of the workers. But also the emblem of each trade, specialist by specialist, such as the engineers designing the dams supplying energy to the emerging industry of the Union. Each one thus received his medal.
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