Reduction in rank

[2] In the United States, courts-martial may adjudge reduction to any enlisted member to the lowest or any intermediate pay grade.

Lieutenant-General Marquis Philip Osipovich Paulucci, being quartermaster general of the Caucasus army, on 3 November 1810, wrote in his diary: "the Tiflis infantry regiment non-commissioned officer Ermolaev, the former in the recruit depot when you split the party on the shelves, took the recruit 5 rubles brazenly.

For any impermissible and intolerable service act, reduced thereof in the ordinary non-commissioned officer, require him to drive the rods through 500 people one time, and taken money from him to take away and give to a recruit.

During the second world war, those demoted in rank were not imprisoned away from the front lines but instead made to serve in the penal divisions.

During the Third Reich, the SS officer Helmut Knochen was demoted in rank because, during the coup attempt of 20 July 1944, he did not adequately resist the conspirators, and got himself arrested.