something you dont see all the time....

[Bob Devlin]

Shouldn't the Iron Cross be mounted higher on the uniform than the Glider Proficiency Badge?

[Mark S.]

Sure, Prosper, post the pics when time is available. I would like to see them.

[James Noble]

In his book THE IRON CROSS Gordon Williamson says the orginial cloth versons of the 1939 EK 1st Class were rather crude and not at all popular. And by the looks of this mans tunic it appears that all three of his Badges are cloth

[Prosper Keating]

Here's one of the EK1s made by Israel M Hand and sold as original by the wellknown top British dealer to whom I have referred on this Forum before.
It's quite convincing to the unwary but anyone who knows about wire embroidery will recognise the beading as British rather than German in form.



And here's a nice-looking Waffen-SS Bergführer Badge commissioned by the same dealer from the same firm. It is, as the coin next to it shows, too large. There was a misunderstanding about the dimensions and sizewise, it was based on the arm badge instead of the Army Mountain Leader Badge. So the dealer aborted the order, telling the embroiderer to destroy them and begin again. I rescued a couple of examples before they were destroyed and later upset the dealer in question by innocently showing him one of them! I described this in a thread quite a while ago.




Anyway, as I have often said, you can't trust most dealers.

Prosper Keating

[ 20 June 2001: Message edited by: Prosper Keating ]

[Luft62]

My father was in the Luftwaffe both as aircrew and then infantry. He said within his unit it was common practice to wear cloth copies of their decorations - including the EK1. He managed to hang on to an example of his cloth EK1 and still had it until some 5 years ago. It was black cloth with both the swastika and the "1939" both embroidered in a dark grey thread. The border was a lighter grey thread - all the way to the outer edges. A thin line of the dark grey thread was around inner edge of the light grey outline. It was slightly larger than a real EK1. The outer border was nowhere near as bright as the one being worn in the picture. It was of greater quality than the other repo ones shown - with quite sharp edges to all the embroidery work. He said they got them professionally made as a group lot - place unknown. As he was awarded the EK1 when in a ground unit it was worn on the normal combat tunic - but he did say it was more a Luftwaffe kind of practice.

[emaroli]

On page 434 of Detlev Niemann"s book he has a photo of a Luftwaffe major with all cloth insignia;DKG, WWI EKI, WWII EKI Spange, Pilots badge, and some type of flight clasp.
All in cloth!