Time for another classification thread — this time for that quintessential navy badge, the much-beloved Fleet War Badge.
Announced by Großadmiral Erich Raeder on April 30, 1941, the Flotten-Kriegsabzeichen was the fifth Kriegsmarine service badge to be introduced (omitting the Blockade Breaker badge for now since it was a civilian award and approved for navy personnel only later in December, 1942). There had been an 8 month hiatus between the release of the Minesweeper badge in 1940 and the quick flurry of new badge announcements in 1941 between April and June.
Although announced on April 30, that announcement wasn’t published in Uniformen-Markt until June 1st in the same article announcing the Hilfskreuzer badge which had been instituted by Raeder on April 24. At the time it was stated: “Die Entwürfe zu den beiden vorstehend geschilderten Kriegsabzeichen sind, wie wir hören, fertig, aber die Muster noch nicht.”
“The designs of the two above-mentioned war badges are, as we hear, complete, but the samples are not yet ready.”
That design was by Adolf Bock, a well-known marine artist who created only this one KM badge design, unlike Casberg, Placzek and Peekhaus who each designed more than one. The badge was finally shown in Uniformen-Markt on October 1, 1941, situated between the S-Boat and the Hilfskreuzer, both of which had been designed by Peekhaus. Arguably the most dramatic Kriegsmarine badge, Bock’s design depicts a Scharnhorst class battleship in full frontal approach bordered by the traditional vertical oval oak leaf wreath and topped by the ever present national symbol.
As with the U-Boat, Destroyer and Minesweeper badges, C. Schwerin & Sohn was the premier manufacturer and possibly the only official supplier to the Kriegmarine for the Fleet badge although joined later by 6 other producers and possibly one more. These 8 makers can be grouped into 4 categories by obverse design.
After the preamble I’ll define the 4 categories and then show the salient features for each manufacturer within each group. The differences are subtle as the Fleet badge design shows much greater consistency between makers than was seen in the manufacture of the earlier KM badges.
Finally, a summary table will be presented which assigns a “Fleet badge Classification Number’ (FC#) to each of 28 variants.
Best regards,
---Norm
Announced by Großadmiral Erich Raeder on April 30, 1941, the Flotten-Kriegsabzeichen was the fifth Kriegsmarine service badge to be introduced (omitting the Blockade Breaker badge for now since it was a civilian award and approved for navy personnel only later in December, 1942). There had been an 8 month hiatus between the release of the Minesweeper badge in 1940 and the quick flurry of new badge announcements in 1941 between April and June.
Although announced on April 30, that announcement wasn’t published in Uniformen-Markt until June 1st in the same article announcing the Hilfskreuzer badge which had been instituted by Raeder on April 24. At the time it was stated: “Die Entwürfe zu den beiden vorstehend geschilderten Kriegsabzeichen sind, wie wir hören, fertig, aber die Muster noch nicht.”
“The designs of the two above-mentioned war badges are, as we hear, complete, but the samples are not yet ready.”
That design was by Adolf Bock, a well-known marine artist who created only this one KM badge design, unlike Casberg, Placzek and Peekhaus who each designed more than one. The badge was finally shown in Uniformen-Markt on October 1, 1941, situated between the S-Boat and the Hilfskreuzer, both of which had been designed by Peekhaus. Arguably the most dramatic Kriegsmarine badge, Bock’s design depicts a Scharnhorst class battleship in full frontal approach bordered by the traditional vertical oval oak leaf wreath and topped by the ever present national symbol.
As with the U-Boat, Destroyer and Minesweeper badges, C. Schwerin & Sohn was the premier manufacturer and possibly the only official supplier to the Kriegmarine for the Fleet badge although joined later by 6 other producers and possibly one more. These 8 makers can be grouped into 4 categories by obverse design.
After the preamble I’ll define the 4 categories and then show the salient features for each manufacturer within each group. The differences are subtle as the Fleet badge design shows much greater consistency between makers than was seen in the manufacture of the earlier KM badges.
Finally, a summary table will be presented which assigns a “Fleet badge Classification Number’ (FC#) to each of 28 variants.
Best regards,
---Norm
Comment