Unusual Wiking Sleeve Band Story

[John P. Moore]

Below is “Wiking” sleeve band with an interesting story about how it came to be in our possession. In October 1996 my youngest son and I traveled to Germany to attend a couple of SS veteran reunions and meet with some other vet friends in their homes. One vet that we visited was the former SS-Obersturmbannführer. Hans Bünning in Nürnberg, who had earlier been a signal officer in the LAH prior to converting to artillery. He ended the war as commander of the SS-Panzerartillerie Regiment 5 “Wiking” and was a holder of the German Cross in Gold. Near the end of our visit Bünning disappeared and came back to the kitchen a short time later with a knife in one hand and the attached Armelstreifen in the other hand that he said he had just cut off one of his uniforms. He gave it to my son along with a Wiking runic division sticker. The Armelstreifen disappeared for many years and a few months ago I found it in the envelope that Bünning had given him underneath a drawer in my son’s old night stand that I was about to donate to charity!

John

[John P. Moore]

A photo of Hans Bünning and my son Ian during the visit.

[John P. Moore]

A photo from 1945 in Hungary with Bünning on the left. Next to him is the division commander Karl Ullrich and the fellow with his back turned is SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille, commander of the IV.SS-Panzer Korps.

[Felix]

Great story and rediscover of the cuff title! Its a pity he "slaughtered" his uniform to do it, but I guess he is entiteled to do what he want with his own stuff

That must have been a great meeting!

Cheers!

"Felix" - N. Hansson

P.s. Great cuff title BTW!

[prorege1]

Nice history to a cufftitle. Hopefully he did not slaughter the StuG tunic shown on the above photo .. at least it was good the cufftitle was recovered and is kept in your collection.

[Robert H]

This is real history and will make any item impossible to value for you John as there is more behind. Thanks for sharing, Robert

[John Pic]

Nice story and even more interesting in that it is further evidence that not all former SS officers destroyed thier tunics at wars end as has been suggested by some in many threads. Also ineteresting that it is not an officers version but an Em-NCO type not uncommonly used by officers especially on field uniforms.

[Panzer Rob]

What an incredible gesture - removing a cufftitle from one of his uniforms he had been holding on to for 51 years and giving it to your son like that. That really says something. How can you put a price on something like that?!? Wow...

A great story, John. I thank you for sharing this with us!
Rob

[jotuntroll]

Stunning! Great story and finding. Thanks for sharing it with us!

[John P. Moore]

Thanks for everyone’s comments. Below is a view of the back side off the cuff title. I never saw the actual tunic or wrap that Bünning removed the cuff title from. Actually, I have never seen a tunic in the home of any SS veteran. Usually, they have some kind of display of their awards and insignias in a private room of their home. JohnPic does raise an interesting notion that many original Waffen-SS tunics survived the war and are plentiful today. This topic came up for discussion several years back on another forum. I then asked a number of SS vets that I had known for quite a few years what had happened to their tunics and those of their comrades. The answers that I received back were that nobody had any. The tunics had either been worn out during the post-war years in POW/internment camps or swapped for tunics from another branch of the service prior to surrendering.

I was visiting with Hans Bünning in 1996 to go over some lists of “Wiking” division officers to confirm or add to the information that I already had for my “Führerliste de Waffen-SS” publication. Although Bünning had been an artillery officer he had an active role in the division’s vet association and knew quite a bit about a lot of people. Looking at the names on the list brought back a lot of memories and which he related to my son and I. Sadly, Hans Bünning died from a heart attack a month after our visit and I never got to see him again.

John

[ibrahim ahmad]

Thank you for posting the pics & interesting story behind it.
Really appreciate it.


Cheers,
Ibrahim,
Singapore.