Printed Italia Shield Karstjäger

[Askold]

Sorry, but what is "raute"? Is that the qualification diamonds?

[NickG]

raute

Yes "raute" is German for "diamond-shape", its the German name for the specialty or trade patch, as warn on the lower left sleeve above the cuff title. Nick

[Sergey]

Those sields look latvian to me (note the horizontal white stripe)

not the Latvians.

[Askold]

Then what kind of qualification diamond is this? I never seen any with such large vertical stripe.

[Gary Wood]

Then what kind of qualification diamond is this? I never seen any with such large vertical stripe.

Now that is the million dollar question, it is a raute I do not recognise as well, does any one else?
cheers
Gary

[Tommaso]

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[Tommaso]

Starting from the fact that the karstjager was not an Italian Frw. SS division but a proper German SS Division (they wore SS runic tabs) with a lot of South Austrians, Rumenians and North East Italian Volksdeutsches (Friaul and Suedtirol), I never seen a picture of Karstjager members with italian shields like that one.
We must remember that the OZAK (north east italy) became Deutsches Reich during the 1944 and the Repubblica Sociale Italiana was always left in pain over there: RSI got no power at all over there and the Gauleiter Rainer was step by step thinking to "anschluss" the OZAK and OZAV.
Then wear that shield make no sense at all.
I must say that anyway the edelweiss on the sleeve is the army one and not the SS standard.
They dont really look Karstjagers, but east europe volunteers.

cheers
t

[Tommaso]

I must say that Karstjagers never wore a cufftitle, just karstjager members from other divisions were allowed to keep their previous CT.
In that picture all the CTs looks to be the same.
Also the shield is not correct, the Italian flag got vertical strips.
Apart the guy with the edelweiss they dont look like Gebirgsjager....
You can anyway try to find out something from the feldpostnumber on the small picture or from the CT.

Cheers.
T

[Basil]

Maybe I'm just being stupid, but they just look like blurry signals (or possibly even veterinary) Raute to me.

Just to echo what Drapeau Noir said, the Karstjaeger Regiment was actually primarily Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche from the Banat. It was planned to form a second regiment using various Slovenians, Italians and so on, but it never happened - which is also why it never actually constituted a division. In all the photos I've seen, they wore runes collar patches and SS pattern sleeve edelweisses. The edelweiss in the picture looks like an army pattern one: maybe a transferee?

[heinrich66]

Hello,

very interesting how this thred goes. I just made some high resolution scans and mailed them to Gary- hopefully his photoshop skills are better then mine

One short note:
Within the group was this romanian military id :
http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=153042
I first thought it was just a souvenir which a german soldier had kept.

What about the Feldpostnumber of the soldbuch pic- is it traceable?

Drapeau Noir stated that the shield isn't correct, but it looks similar to me as the one in the link in my first post.

At least there is a 4th, very small pic only 2x2 cm showing a group of this men standing in front of the "SENDER BELGRAD" only one is wearing a sleeve eagle, none of them is wearing collar tabs or other ss insignia.

Regards

Heinrich

[Gary Wood]

from the better photo Heinrich sent me, back row third man in from the left (#3)is wearing a m43 tunic with dark green collar added

2 men on the front row far left and far right (#1 & #2)are wearing what looks like "AS I" on there shoulder straps although the man on the far right you can only make out there is something on the shoulder straps, it is far more visible on the man on the far left

from the cuff titles on view in the photo non of which i can make out, front row middle (#4) looks like 2 words, front row right ( #2) looks like one word, back row far right (#5) looks like 2 words

the man front row far right ( # 2), the raute does look like a signal blitz, but the raute on the man far right back row is still a mystery

[Askold]

Is it possible to post parts of the high resolution pic for us to examine? It seems that all of the men are wearing different uniforms and CF - perhaps this is some sort of Kriegsberichter gathering?

P.S. Did you get to find out what kind of diamond that is?

[heinrich66]

Hello,
Adrian Stevenson was kind enough to help researching the feldpostnummer it stands for:

(Mobilmachung-1.1.1940) 3. u. 4. Zug Sperr-Kompanie 1 Sperr-Bataillon 195,
(12.7.1941-26.1.1942) gestrichen,
(15.7.1942-24.1.1943) Messbatterie Artillerie-Regiment SS-Kavallerie-Brigade,
dann Messbatterie Artillerie-Regiment SS-Kavallerie-Division,
(25.1.1943-31.7.1943) Messbatterie SS-Artillerie-Regiment (Kavallerie-Division),
(1.8.1943-23.3.1944) 15.2.1944 Messbatterie Artillerie-Regiment 8 (8. SS-Division),
(24.3.1944-6.11.1944) 10.8.1944 gestrichen

Regards

Heinrich

[Tommaso]

Just to echo what Drapeau Noir said, the Karstjaeger Regiment was actually primarily Reichsdeutsche and Volksdeutsche from the Banat. It was planned to form a second regiment using various Slovenians, Italians and so on, but it never happened

Basil, your not correct at all: the 24 SS Division "Karstjager" (sometimes called anyway Brigade untill the end of the war) was born from the Karstwher Btl. who became the 1st Division's Battalion and was formed by some rumanians, a lot of south germans and austrians, a bunch of spaniards and a strong group of ethnic volkdeutsches from the OZAK/OZAV then Suedtirol, Friaul, Goerz, Triest, Lubiana, Fiume and Istria.

[Gary Wood]

Is it possible to post parts of the high resolution pic for us to examine? It seems that all of the men are wearing different uniforms and CF - perhaps this is some sort of Kriegsberichter gathering?

P.S. Did you get to find out what kind of diamond that is?

with the consent of the owner of the photo here are a few enlarged shots