My new ID tag

[Jokka]

It's smaller than the ordinary ones, think it's zink, and says:

97042 (soldiers number i guess)
OFFENBACH A.M (the a is smaller than the other letters) and this is stamped from the backside while the numbers is stamped from the frontside.

Can anyone enlighten me what this is from, and if it's good ?

[Frontalschaden]

Offenbach a.M. means the Town Offenbach am Main (Offenbach at the River Main)

I am not sure if this dogtag is good, because it have a very "brutal" finish.
==> See Trennschlitze.


Best regards

Fronti

[Matt L]

It's not a military disc- at least not a type I'm familiar with. Given that there's a city name on it, I'd guess it was a type worn by civilians because of the bombing. Now I've only heard specifically that children were sometimes given discs with their names on them, etc., if they were sent out of a city to be safe, but it seems reasonable that because of all the bombing, having this kind of identification would be a good idea for everyone.

I kind of doubt it's a fake given the relief lettering of the city name- that's a little too sophistcated for the average faker, especially since this isn't a particularly desirable or valuable type of disc (or even 100% identifable for that matter). The flashing on the reverse side of the Trennschlitze is something I've seen before on good military discs- it just means the dies that did the cutting were wearing out, and I'd expect that if this is a disc just for a civilian, they wouldn't get the best quality blanks anyway.

Matt

[Jokka]

Here's a pic to show the size of it. (smaller than the normal) A tag for sivilians sounds good, but this should be more known by collectors ?

What about civilian defences, was there any civilian defenses that was in different towns, so the was "stuck" there all the time and did not belong to any moving troops ? If so it would be logic with the towns name instead of any troop or division or whatever.

[Jokka]

Just checked with the seller, and it's supposed to be air-defence tag. So I guess it's from the actual towns air defence.

[Frontalschaden]

Just checked with the seller, and it's supposed to be air-defence tag. So I guess it's from the actual towns air defence.

I didn`t think so, because the Air defence is part of the Luftwaffe. They have normal dogtags, stamped with Flak (f.egg.)

The Civilian Air defence have normal dogtags too. Stamped with Heimatflak

The LSW (Air Raid warning service) have normal dogtags with the abbreviation LSW and a code number for the Luftgau and the town.


MfG Fronti

[Jokka]

Hmm, so I'm back to square one.....

[Matt L]

Right- any formal units would have normal military-style discs marked with the unit's data. This one's a different style and with simply a serial number, I'm still inclined to believe it is most likely a civilian identification disc. If, of course, the town of Offenbach a. M. had a population of over 100 000 persons that is and they started at 1.

What makes the seller believe it's an air-defence disc?

[mr.dogtag]

Hi Guys,
I belive that this one comes from some big factory located in Offenbach.
It looks to be typical worker's tag. Most of the big factories issued tags to both contracted workers, forced labourers, Werkschutz units and eventually Anti Air Raid personnel recruited from the workers.
My Offenbach tag is numbered 30 519. Otherwise looks exactly the same.
Rgds
Al

[Jokka]

What makes the seller believe it's an air-defence disc?

He says: "They are smaller and are made for air defence troops at different destricts"

[Matt L]

Well Al's provided the answer then- good So I guess I wasn't far off- these would have been civilians, but not necessarily citizens of Offenbach a.M.

And Jokka- the seller's answer to my question isn't a real answer. WHY does he believe what he says- what evidence does he have? I've never heard or read of such a thing- that district air-defense personnel specifically had smaller discs like this one. He may be confusing his logic if what Al says is the case- it may be that personnel from factories who wore these small discs ended-up in some kind of role during air-raids, but that doesn't mean the small discs were for air-raid personnel specifically. Of course if he has evidence of this, that would be different...

[Jokka]

And Jokka- the seller's answer to my question isn't a real answer. WHY does he believe what he says- what evidence does he have? I've never heard or read of such a thing- that district air-defense personnel specifically had smaller discs like this one. He may be confusing his logic if what Al says is the case- it may be that personnel from factories who wore these small discs ended-up in some kind of role during air-raids, but that doesn't mean the small discs were for air-raid personnel specifically. Of course if he has evidence of this, that would be different...

I sent him the the different opinions from this thread, and he said:

"Yes, there is a lot of theories as usual. I bought it from Germany as a air defence tag and I have seen these before"

[Jokka]

I contacted the guy running http://www.deutschesoldaten.com/ and asked him about this tag. His answer was:

"No idea - I suppose it is possible it is actually for a dog, nicht wahr? ;-)"

[Gaspare]

* '"No idea - I suppose it is possible it is actually for a dog, nicht wahr? ;-)"* ,,I love that!!

Maybe the confusion is because some of the factory workers could have also been used in defense of the factory,,,anyway,,,thats a really interesting tag. Thanks for showing it... <!-- / message -->

[Matt L]

I sent him the the different opinions from this thread, and he said:

"Yes, there is a lot of theories as usual. I bought it from Germany as a air defence tag and I have seen these before"

That's still not an answer Oh well.