Death head rings question.

[Jean-Loup]

Hi
It seams that during WW2 there was quite a fashion of ring wearing in the german army. The most popular theme seams to have been a "Totenkopf". Rings like this are regularly found on battlefields where the germans fought.
My question is, how much of a fashion was it in other WW2 armys (US, Italians, British, Russian, Hungarians...) to wear death head rings? How many of these ground dug rings were actually worn by germans; or was the german army the only one that tolerated such rings to be worn? What do you think?
Jean Loup

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Jean-Loup, I have never really seen or heard of these type of rings being worn by the British Army in WW2. I do not think rings were that popular with our forces at that time. Most British "squaddies" were poor!

I think it is a Germanic thing mainly..

Here is mine. Taken off a German soldier in Normandy by a Canadian soldier.

Cheers, Ade.

[Jean-Loup]

Thats a very nice ring. I would like to find one like that some day... I have two already, but they arent as handsome.
What about the italians wearing rings?
JL

[Ian Hulley]

I'd like to second Ade when he says "I have never really seen or heard of these type of rings being worn by the British Army in WW2. I do not think rings were that popular with our forces at that time. Most British "squaddies" were poor!
"
You have to remember that Britain was just coming out of the great depression and then (as now) feeding the kids came before purchasing jewelry.Wedding rings were not always worn by men and if they were they could be made from brass or similar.Let's face it jewelry other than a wedding ring was (and sometimes still is up here with us rough Northern types ) considered effeminate.I'm afraid many peoples opinion of 1930s Britain comes from 'Jeeves and Wooster',sadly most people were 'on their uppers' my step-dad volunteered for the navy in '38 as a means to feed his mother and sisters back home,His brother Joe went into the army for similar reasons (even though he'd lost his trigger finger in a threshing machine),he was killed at Donbaik in Burma - probably without meeting John Wayne,Clarke Gable or even Frank Sinatra.

Cheers,Ian Hulley

[Robin Lumsden]

There were many variations of death's head rings for sale commercially in Germany in the 30s and 40s. They came in everything from cast brass and bronze to struck silver in various qualities. Judging by wartime photos, they were particularly popular with members of the Hitler Youth, army engineers, panzer crews, assault troops, snipers and the SS. If you look at the book 'Meine Ehre heisst Treue', a pictorial history of the Finnish SS battalion, just about every enlisted man depicted has some type of skull ring on his finger. Himmler is known to have worn three different types of skull rings simultaneously, although I think that was over-egging it just a tad

[Jean-Loup]

I at least on one occasion saw a brittish ring, but not with a death head; with a coat of arms.
Robin, do you know of any place where I could see an original catalogue of death rings?
What about the italians, does any one know if they wore death head rings. I know several of their units had death heads as insignias; but I dont know if it was a fashion in the italian army to wear rings like that. I thing they were more religious types...
JL