HJ Hochland Lager 1936

[Odyssey]

Hello!
Need your's opinion about this badge.
I know some types of this badge are considered as fantasy.
How about this ones?
[IMG][/IMG]
All the Best,
Dmitry

[Odyssey]

Maybe anybody have this badge on hand?

[RonR]

A similar badge, thought to be a participants badge based upon the numbers, however it is designed to be a buttonhole device of some sort....


............

[feldpost 58]

Hi,

Hochland Lager undoubtedly existed, I have a grouping of three letters posted by an HJ member from 1937.
This does not help to authenticicate badges of course; but I am sure they would be up for sale in the camp shop!
The Nazis were great at sending people to places, and making them pay for the cost of the jourmey.

Best wishes,

John.

[Jo Rivett]

but I am sure they would be up for sale in the camp shop!

The Camp shop?

[Jo Rivett]

A similar badge, thought to be a participants badge

Ron, is this ↑↑↑ comment because of THIS THREAD ? Where one poster suggested this to you? or has any more research been done since then? or any more evidence come to light?

Because if no further evidence has come to light, then you should really have said something like: 1 poster suggested, last year, that it could be....
By saying, in the nonchalant way that you just have, ..thought to be a .... is a very broad generalization, and it comes across as if you are speaking for others, or relating the general consensus. A brief look at the HJ research forum will show anyone that these HOCHLANDLAGER badges, are viewed with a most sour eye indeed. The ones without a number, with a number, as well as the enamel versions.

[Odyssey]

Thanks guys for you opinion!
As I understand, this badge is not accepted by some collectors.

Ron, is this ↑↑↑ comment because of THIS THREAD ? Where one poster suggested this to you? or has any more research been done since then? or any more evidence come to light?

Because if no further evidence has come to light, then you should really have said something like: 1 poster suggested, last year, that it could be....
By saying, in the nonchalant way that you just have, ..thought to be a .... is a very broad generalization, and it comes across as if you are speaking for others, or relating the general consensus. A brief look at the HJ research forum will show anyone that these HOCHLANDLAGER badges, are viewed with a most sour eye indeed. The ones without a number, with a number, as well as the enamel versions.

[Jo Rivett]

Hi Odyssey. Yes that is correct. But i dont believe that any actual research has been done on the actual badges in question yet. On the background information yes, and on period evidence, yes, but i dont believe that i have ever seen anyone take these three versions and analyze them in any detail. or even discuss the item itself.

So at the moment, i believe all we have, are opinions. Opinions from various groups of individuals based on very different criteria. Sometimes it is even hard to impossible, to try and find out where some of these opinions originated from. I also heard a "rumor" that they were "badges for judges" at that particular camp that year, and had to search hard and long to find out where that theory comes from. I think i found it though, when on the mentioned older thread about these, linked in my first post, there is a comment from RonR saying:

If you look at some of the responses right above, it is thought to be a judge's badge.

The only problem was, that the "some of the responses right above" in that thread, that RonR mentioned, turned out to be only 1 response, and it was, in fact, from RonR himself.

The badges that contain cuff-link-like swivel attachments can be thrown into the bin straight away. This is not an attachment that German badge/award makers used on their items. The patina on all of these button-hole (and swivel) badge reverses, is also a dead give away once the patina on genuine badges, worn on a button hole attachment, are inspected and compared alongside. The obverses of these are always worn, always with patina, yet the reverse never show us anything even similar to what we should see, were the item actually worn!

So were there two types of solid badges? one with a number, crudely stamped on the obverse and then finger-painted red, the other blank? Or are both, as their green enameled counterpart, merely rip-offs from the large, green enameled, boxed HOCHLANDLAGER plaque?

[feldpost 58]

Hi Josef,

Yes, the camp shop!
Most Third Reich (HJ,BDM, RAD, RADwJ etc) camps had a shop, where people had the opportunity to buy a range of items to commemorate their service time.
They could buy postcards, photo albums, desk ornaments, badges and many other items which collectors on this site avidly collect.
The RAD even had small spades engraved on the blade with unit designatations! Beer steins were also a popular purchase.
The NSDAP made vast fortunes from people who were basically forced into their organisations, paid for the experience; and then bought items to commemorate their "Service Time".
As one elderly gent told me - "How would you feel if the Mafia had taken over your country? Made you work to their rules , if you complained you would be sent to a concentraion camp; and all perfectly legal"
Makes you wonder!

Best wishes,

John.

[Jo Rivett]

Hi Josef,

Yes, the camp shop!
Most Third Reich (HJ,BDM, RAD, RADwJ etc) camps had a shop, where people had the opportunity to buy a range of items to commemorate their service time.
They could buy postcards, photo albums, desk ornaments, badges and many other items which collectors on this site avidly collect.

Very interesting. Do you have any evidence of this? A camp shop, at the Hitlerjugendlager, where kids could buy badges?
Not RAD spades or statues, but badges. With or without a number, solid or enameled. Badges? I was always under the impression that badges, such as the ones on this thread, were made on order, and then presented to the recipient. I know of the normal NS-souvenir shops, the licensed RZM outlets where such wares were allowed to be sold, and jewelers that were allowed sell items with a swastika on. But i did not know that badges, were available for purchase by the Hitlerjugend, at their camp shop.

Assuming that the numbered bronze badge is not a fantasy, i hardly see a badge like this being available at a shop, indeed even costing anything, logically based on the number, i.e: being awarded/given/required for wear.
Possibly the bronze badge with no number was available at the camp shop? Or the enameled one?

How would you feel if the Mafia had taken over your country?

Is mafia not just another word for government?

[Alex K.]

I just can provide another numbered badge i got from a participant. So at least these type of Hochland badges are in my opinion good ones.

[jabnus]

While i can't comment on the HJ Hochland badges (im very sceptical too) i can confirm that commemorative daybadges were sometimes sold at certain events. I have no evidence of any campshops of any events, but always assumed that for certain events people could buy the badges from people who were selling them on the events grounds, similar to the proces of obtaining WHW badges in the streets. I have written evidence for this proces during the war for several Dutch fascist badges and think the same goes for (some) german badges as well.


Not to want to go offtopic, but for years we are hearing the wildest stories of for example the many Reichsparteitag souvenirs being sold at (camp)shops on the RPT grounds and that this is evidence for the many items on the market being real. I have seen quite a lot of photo's from these days, but to my memory never one from an official campshop. IF such a shop did exist there must be some photo's as about every inch was photographed of these events.

[Jo Rivett]

Exactly Gaston. Before any topic goes off topic, and starts to discuss possibilities of where certain items could have been sold, we indeed, need some proof that there were shops, or a shop, at the HJ camp(s) where badges were sold. Especially when we are talking about three badges here, that in all probability, are post war fantasy badges - it is not acceptable to try and include them into history just because a person "thinks" that they could have been for sale, as non-official badges, to kids, as souvenirs! Without having evidence that badges were sold at camp shops.

What were these "commemorative" badges that were sold to the kids? where are they today?`After all, there were thousands of kids at the HJ Hochlandlager camps.

Why were they sold to the kids? they have a number on, supposedly that number meant something, otherwise the maker wasted his time setting up the dies, OR... the same as with the S stamped HJ Leistungsabzeichen, the forger stamped the numbers by hand?

Then there is the same badge, but with NO number. Were these the ones that kids could buy? Why? it is exactly the same badge as that WITH a number. Why would a kid buy that? to look like the Judge? if they were badges for judges as RonR suspects. No wait, they could also be participants badges, given to the 9000 odd that attended, as RonR also says... Why would a kid buy that? if he was THERE, at the camp shop, then surely he was a participant, and surely he would already have received one with a number.

So without evidence, we have to exclude that these, highly suspect badges, were sold at camp shops to HJ kids. No? If you dont want to, then you also have to accept this theory of mine, with no evidence.
HJ kids, who did not want to go to the HJ camps, were allowed to go to the moon instead, where these badges were possibly made, and possibly worn!

I have one of the enameled versions, and it is a ridiculous fake to say the least. These look the same, but until i have one in my grubby paws, which i will.... i will say one thing only....
Tears......

[Wood]

[QUOTE=Josef Fueß;merely rip-offs from the large, green enameled, boxed HOCHLANDLAGER plaque?[/QUOTE]
So where did they buy these?
Pete

[dkelley]

Maybe this PIC may help, huh?

Best wishes always!
Dan