Here are some of my cloth badges for the Small battle arms units.
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The lack of comments to this awsome display only confirms the scarcity of this badge. Having no experience in these badges, but knowing you won't waste money on crap, all I can say is WOW
KR
Peter -
I do not have any experience with these badges, but for what it's worth they look very nice to me.
Can you explain wich units these cloth badges represented? I might as wel learn something of it.Comment
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Swordfish paperwork
Ludwig,
These badges and the history behind them are very interesting IMO.
Do you happen to have paperwork as well?
There was/is a good series of articles on these badges/docs in the German IMM magazine.
MarkusComment
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Yes, Markus, I have award documents for two classes (Bewährungsabzeichen and Kampfabzeichen 1. Stufe), some Soldbuchs and some more.Comment
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Sawfish
Would you be willing to share?
Are yr docs for the basic badge or the "real" grades?
MarkusComment
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Hi Markus,
I am happy over your interest.
One document is for the Bewährungsabzeichen (a sawfish) and one is for the Kampfabzeichen 1. Stufe (a sawfish with a rope around) .
No, I am not willing to share at the moment, because I am planning a book about these items. I want to keep them as a little "surprise".
Perhaps the general interest will be bigger after the book has been published. I certainly hope so, because if you are looking for "heroes" you will really find them in these units.
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Sawfish
Koenig Ludwig!
Yes, I understand that you want to keep the docs in the shadow still.
The history behind these units is still underestimated in my opinion and extremely interesting.
The Bewaehrungsabzeichen is not that interesting, but the different Stufen!
I wish you luck for the book. I am working on contributing to 2 books on the LAH as well which will come out only in a couple of years I think.
Saludos desde México!
MarkusComment
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Wonderful collection
Ludwig,
That is a wonderful collection of a very interesting badge. As others have mentioned these were very brave men and from what I have read the loss rate for these units was very high. That and the fact that the badge series was instituted late in the war makes them very hard to find, especially in the U.S. It is interesting to see the variety of fish patterns depicted in your collection. Are any of them marked? Are they all made by machine or are some of local or hand made variety? It would appear that they are all in yellow-gold thread. I have seen pictures of these in gold wire or bullion supposedly for officers. Do you feel that is accurate? Also I have read on the forums here that war time made badges have the saw teeth as distinct teeth lined up across from one another along the "spear" of the fish while post war or repro badges have the teeth represented as a zigzag pattern to the "spear". Do you find that is accurate in your experience? Are all of the badges seen here war time or are some post war Bundesmarine? Hope you don't mind all the questions. Again, great display! I love these badges. BTW, what is the cap tally from? Thank you so much for sharing these.
Mike ColemanComment
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Thanks for your interest and please excuse me for answering so late.
All my badges are wartime produced. It´s not impossible that he handmade ones could have been made in a POW camp.
The badge in the upper right corner and the three badges to the left under the cap tally are handmade. The other are the standard machinestiched official type. One has been cutout by the soldier. As far as I know ALL these cloth badges were produced by ONE company only and are of the same pattern; yellow thread on a navyblue circle. Badges made of metallic thread/bullion are fakes.
An officer´s version is out of the question as the difference between EM, NCOs and Officers in the German Wehrmacht were never so small as in these units.Comment
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Ludwig,
This is a truely magnificent collection of the rarest of the German Naval badges. How I wish there was a good reference on both the history of the small battle units and the insignia worn.
OUTSTANDING of the rarest of the rare.
Bob HritzIn the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can muffle the sound.Comment
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Ludwig,
I don't mean to be a pest but am truely interested in these badges and am trying to learn. You said above that all these badges were in yellow thread only but on the awards section of the forum the article on this award written by Mr. Williamson states that these were issued in cellion and wire thread as well and shows a picture of a 4th class in wire. Is it your feeling that this information is incorrect and have you ever had the chance to discuss these differences of opinion with Mr. Williamson? Again, I am just trying to learn more about these most interesting awards and the men that earned them. Thank you.
MikeComment
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Hi Mike,
No problem at all. Yes, in my opinion the information on Gordon´s site is wrong.
I just haven´t given it a thought to discuss it with him. I´m sure he wouldn´t mind. To me he seems to be a nice person.
I know that in several books there are badges attributed to Dr. Klietmann, but IMO they are fakes, too.
All the badges that have been connected to a certain holder, have been of the same manufacture and concidering how late they were instituted and produced it´s not very likely there were more than one maker. These units were quite small in more than one way!
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Kampfabzeichen 1. StufeComment
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Dito reverseComment
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