RAD Braunschweig Badge

[415]

I found this RAD Badge and to me it looks ok, but I’m not totally sure. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Chris

[Radcollector]

here is a link to a very big thread we had regarding this pin
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...ight=RAD+badge

[415]

Thanks.

[sjl]

To summarize the long, older thread, didn't we determine that RAD Abteilung 4/305 wasn't even located in Braunschweig and there were only 214 people in an RAD Abteilung in the first place?

All of which would make this badge a fantasy.

Or am I just getting senile?

[Gregorio Torres]

[quote=sjl;2848361]To summarize the long, older thread, didn't we determine that RAD Abteilung 4/305 wasn't even located in Braunschweig and there were only 214 people in an RAD Abteilung in the first place?

All of which would make this badge a fantasy
quote]

An old dicussion. To the question the answer is YES, we did. But this not mean nessesarily that the badge is a fantasy, in my oppinion and in the oppinion of much more people. So you can find this one in a lot of very serious collection all around the world and in reference books long time ago. For me, it´s in the grey zone until definitive proof are presented, but it can not be ignored by a serious RAD collector.

Greg

[sjl]

So you can find this one in a lot of very serious collection all around the world and in reference books long time ago.

You can run a mule in the Kentucky Derby, but that doesn't make it a racehorse.

I should have said that in my opinion, the evidence points seriously to this badge being a fantasy. The fact that the RAD Abteilung didn't exist in Braunschweig is pretty good evidence to me, no matter whose collection or book it is in. The fact that there are thousands of these badges around when an Abteilung only has a handful of members (making this badge rarer than a Knights Cross or Gold Party Badge) also speaks very loudly.

I bow to Yancy's opinion on these badges generally, and would be happy for an informed (as opposed to my own) opinion.

The particular example shown has the signs of artificial chemical aging on the reverse, and so I would venture it is recent manufacture, regardless.

[Gregorio Torres]

Ok, just your oppinion. For a lot of researchers, dealers and collectors the things are different.
I allways had heard than this had to be made by the members of this RAD abteilung to get fund for a trip or camp in Braunschweig. A lot of them had to be sold to get much money for this activity, obviously. This have more sense that a badge made to be worn just for the members of a small unit.
On the other hand, if it´s a fantasy badge... why so many different versions of it? Why to make so many fakes of a fantasy item in different years and with different details? Non sense.
Anycase all these questions were discussed before.
Just in case, as they are not very expensive I´ll keep one of them in my collection.
Regards
Greg

[sjl]

Well, I think there is a lot of contortions going on here to account for a bad badge.

I've never heard that these were supposed to somehow be fundraising "tinnies" to pay for travel to some RAD clambake in Braunschweig. Is there any source for the theory or is it just a W.A.G.? Most fundraisers were not enamel (far too expensive), and "Treffen" badges usually were very specific about the event. We have no date and nothing to indicate Braunschweig was a destination, RAD festival or meeting.

The Assmann catalogue has a similar badge for "ABTL. 3/204 - HIMMIGHAUSEN" (p. 44). Is that too a fundraising badge, or a unit badge? Those badges are very, very rare, as I would expect for a small unit. I think it's pretty clearly a unit badge with the unit location, which makes the badge shown here for Braunschweig wrong, unless Yancy can tell us that ABTL. 3/204 was not located in Himmighausen. The one in the Assmann catalog is probably what gave the fakers the idea of making a new fantasy badge in the first place, and simply changed the unit number and location without bothering to look up whether they matched.

As for the fact that there have been lots of makers and types of this badge in the past years, I think that shows that they are likely fakes, not that they are originals. There are probably more "makers" of NSDAP pins now than there were in the III Reich - that doesn't make them real. Fakers make what they can sell, and they copy copies. That's why you have so many different ones of this and many other fake badges. Until the last thread, no one even checked to see if the unit and location matched on this badge, or questioned how many of these should be in circulation as unit badges, except the fact Cone said they were "rare", probably because the first run of fantasy badges was small. Now there are thousands of them cluttering every militaria and gun show.

There's nothing here - IMHO - that can suggest these badges are good when you look at all the facts.

[Gregorio Torres]

Ok, Stephen, we know what is your oppinion.
Anycase, there are another different, from people like Angolia, Littlejohn, Cone... Some people prefers to trust in them, and you must accept it, I suppose.
Greg

[sjl]

Ok, Stephen, we know what is your oppinion.
Anycase, there are another different, from people like Angolia, Littlejohn, Cone... Some people prefers to trust in them, and you must accept it, I suppose.
Greg

And of course, they have never been wrong...

[Gregorio Torres]

Of course, they may be wrong.
And you??

[sjl]

Never. Just don't ask my wife.

Seriously, I'd love to hear a real RAD expert (calling Yancy!) discuss whether this pin is possible or a fantasy. I think the facts as laid out (not opinions, but the facts) kill this badge, but I am always prepared to change my opinion if there are new facts.

I will never say a badge is good simply because some author has a photo of it in an old book. That is a good way to lose your hard earned money.

[Gregorio Torres]

I´m not a RAD expert, but I was wondering...
First of all, if a similar badge for ABTL. 3/204 - HIMMIGHAUSEN do exist, why not another one for this Abteilung?.
Supossing that this is not a fundraising badge to get money for this unit to participate in some activity in Brauschweig (althought it may be)...
Who can probe that this is not the number for the Braunschweig RAD Abteilung in the moment when the badge was made?
Where is published the list of the RAD abteilungs numbers?
Can this list and RAD numbers have changed oficially between 1933 and 1945?
If published, could this list have a misprint in this number exactly?
All this things are as believable as the chance of one fantasy badge which fool a lot of the best Third Reich militaria experts for decades and produce a lot of fakes of them.

[sjl]

Here's what an RAD researcher had to say about "4-305 Brauschweig" in the other thread (Post #33):

Hi together, Greetings from Germany

I'm working since 1985 about the RAD-Abteilungen.
2009 I will publish the book by Biblio-Verlag in Germany with 3 volumes, every volume with more than 500 pages, without pictures - only text with small letters. It is like a Tessin for the RAD.
I have all RAD-camps with the history from 1933 to winter 1942, and nearly complete from 1943 to 1944, with some holes.

And this is the background for my statement: there was never a camp 4/ 305 in Braunschweig, there is not a place "Braunschweig" in Bavaria, because the pin said: 305 - and this is a RAD-Group in Bavaria.

This is the short example of:
4/ 305
Markt Oberdorf, 1934, 02.1935, 01.1937, 10.1938.
Ehrenname "Wendelin Hippler".
from my book.

And this is a short example of:
3/ 204
Himmighausen, 1934, 10.1935, bis 02.1936.
Ehrenname „Iburg“.

I think the difference is clear.
The only real pin with real history is the 3/ 204.

There is only one option: old Assmann pins with 4/ 305 are real as a prototype for marketing in the RAD between end of 1933 and beginning of 1935.
After summer of 1935 all badges of the RAD are restricted from the Reichsleitung of RAD in Berlin. There were complex licensing procedures.

Please compare it with a SS-cuff title with a new name of a not existed SS-division.
Every collector in the hole world would scream about this dump fake.
And this is another part of the difference: all SS-Divisions are well known.
Every collector has books and originals like water in the sea.
But I'm only 1 man and my book - the first book about the RAD-Dienststellen is not ready yet.

summary: only the 3/ 204 has a real history.
most of the 305 pins are fakes.

But my very old pin of 305 is so good - that I would say: old prototype for marketing. I have bought the pin 1990, but he is much older.
The white enamel has more grey, the ears are more like the 3/ 204.

And last: I have no picture in my more than 20.000 picture collection of RAD from 33-38 with a wearer.

I think, there is no end of discussion - its a shaggy-dog story. I know so many sales men in Germany with cries: Its real, its real - lets sale this in the U.S. or Italy.
And this is the real ground of the story: there are to many freaks in the world
there sole opinion is: I want also a cool nice looking Nazi pin with swastika.
I'm only a historian. But behind every pin from enamel and metal is a history.

Michael
_________________

In the genuine badge "3/204 Himmighausen" Himmighausen is the location of RAD Abteilung - so not a travel / trip destination - the location of the RAD camp belonging to 3/204. Our RAD scholar suggests the only *possibility* is that a 305 badge was created by Assmann as a salesman sample, but that is not the sample they show in their catalogue - it's the genuine and rare 3/204 badge. Even if Assmann created their own "fantasy badge" as a sample - and I don't think for a minute that they did - how many would they have made? A handful?

Still, people have been known to jump into the most ridiculous lifeboats to save a bad badge.

[Gregorio Torres]

I had read this contribution in the past and as I can see that is the only one reference that you have to support your idea. But, have somebody got the quoted book of this historian? Is there any more reference to support this thesis? Is there somebody else saying that this abteilung was not in Braunschweig?
I´m right with you in this: I don´t belive in a badge made as a sample for marketing reasons.
On the other hand, perhaps you has made a mistake: I´m not trying to save the badge as original. Contrary to you, I´m not trying to probe anything. I´m just trying to know more about this because I love this hobby. But, If the badge is good or bad there there is no problem or profit for me.
Greg