Ss Honor Ring Document

[max history]

.....The last DAL to include all SS ranks was that of 1 December 1938; thereafter, the DALs only included the higher ranks due to the great number of personnel attached to the Waffen-SS.

Br. James

Not correct, I'm afraid. The last SS-DAL post-war reprint for Allgemeine-SS and SS-VT was 1. Dezember 1938, mit Berichtigungsheft: Stand vom 15. Juni 1939. The original SS-DAL for all officer ranks continued after that (I believe there may have been two in 1942) but there were so many junior ranks they were not included in the reprints. The Waffen-SS had its own DAL thereafter which did include junior officer ranks. I believe the last of these was 1. Juli 1944, but there may have been one later I am not aware of as information regarding SS promotions after this are usually found in the SS-Verordnungsblatte. Original DALs are extremely rare and command extremely high prices at auction.
Max.

[peterm]

The terminology you use is interesting. Tell me, how does one go about "liberating" someone's personal effects? It used to be called looting in time of war, or just plain thievery.

A great document foe sure!
But I totally agree: it was forbidden to steal the personal effects of soldiers at this time an still is a crime nowadays!

Kind regard, Peter

[Br. James]

Thanks for the information, Max. I was not aware that "The original SS-DAL for all officer ranks continued after [1/12/38] (I believe there may have been two in 1942) but there were so many junior ranks they were not included in the reprints." I have copies of the following DALs:

October 1, 1934 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Sturmführer)
July 1, 1935 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Untersturmführer)
December 1, 1936 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Untersturmführer)
December 1, 1937 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Untersturmführer)
December 1, 1938 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Untersturmführer), with its Correction Notebook as of June 15, 1939
January 30, 1942 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Standartenführer)
April 20, 1942 (SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer – SS-Standartenführer)
October 1, 1943 (SS-Obersturmbannführer und SS-Sturmbannführer)
Dienstaltersliste der Waffen-SS July 1, 1944 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Hauptsturmführer)
October 1, 1944 (SS-Obersturmbannführer und SS-Sturmbannführer)
November 9, 1944 (SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer – SS-Standartenführer)
The Last Levy: SS Officer Roster March 1, 1945, by Antonio J. Munoz (incomplete list, Oberst-Gruppenführer – Obersturmführer, listed by command)

I understand that in February 2008 Mike Constandy of Westmoreland Research released a DVD entitled "SS Dienstaltersliste: 5 SS Officer Rank Lists on One DVD," which includes the following DALs not in my library:
October 1, 1942 (SS-Obersturmbannführer und SS-Sturmbannführer)
January 30, 1944 (SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer – SS-Standartenführer)
July 1, 1944 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Hauptsturmführer)

While I haven't viewed Mike's DVD, I do note that the pages in the DAL copies in my library are numbered consecutively, with the alphabetic indexes appearing in the proper sequence, which I have assumed means that there were no missing pages from the copies I have. Apparently Mike's DVD also only includes lists published for certain ranks, but none for all ranks.

A researcher/collector friend of mine recorded the presence of microfilmed copies of DALs in the main reference library in Washington DC, among which were the following documents neither in my library or on Mike's DVD:
October 1, 1935 (SS-Obergruppenführer bis SS-Untersturmführer)
March 1, 1938 Correction Notebook to the DAL of December 1, 1937
November 9, 1942 (certain ranks)
May 15, 1943 (certain ranks)

Here again, none of these documents were published as a complete set of all SS ranks, only selected groups of ranks.

The DALs included in Bernie Brulé's landmark work, "The Key," do not reference any other editions which include all ranks, either from 1942 or the intervening or later years.

I am certainly not disagreeing with you, Max, for "all knowledge is incomplete," but if you could provide further details on the DAL editions missing above, that would be most helpful to me. With thanks,

Br. James