Classification of Auxiliary Cruiser Badges based on obverse design

[Patrick W]

Superb work Norm! Another great reference thread. I won't get my S&L's mixed up anymore thank you for your research.

[Giel VW]

You're the best Norm, great classification

[BubbaZ]

Perfect!

[Martin W]

Excellent and outstanding.

[Terrence]

Great detail work Norm!!
Your work helped me reclassify what I thought was a post war to a war time made piece!! Thank you!
Terrence

[Norm F]

Addendum - The Auxiliary Cruiser Badge with Diamonds

As a postscript to this study, excluded from the classification table is the one and only known Auxiliary Cruiser Badge with Diamonds. This was a 2-piece badge awarded by Großadmiral Raeder to Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge in January, 1942, subsequently pictured in several reference texts (Klietmann, Patzwall, Nimmergut, Williamson) and supported by Rogge’s own testimony. Other claims of several examples of a Souval-like one-piece design being wartime are unsubstantiated and improbable based on current research.

Interestingly, the Rogge-attributed badge is the Type 2 design and looks very much like what you might expect a custom Juncker product to look like. The details shown in the attached comparison are taken from the colour photo attributed to Don Frailey from his visit to Rogge in the 1970’s and match Klietmann’s B&W 1950’s photo (later re-published by Nimmergut). The unique design features a seamlessly integrated diamond-studded swastika which is slightly larger than standard so that the obverse features of ship and globe are shifted lower in the badge. The globe can be seen to be the Juncker globe with the lower portion trimmed down to fit the smaller space. Just as the U-Boat with Diamonds was commissioned by Raeder from the KM’s premier supplier of U-Boat awards (i.e. Schwerin), it would seem logical for the Hilfskreuzer to be commissioned from the KM’s main supplier of Tombak Hilfskreuzer awards, i.e Juncker. For now, this is a just a theory but a logical one that fits the observations.