Allgemeine SS collar tabs

[Lawrence]

I was wondering, why did the men of the Allgemeine SS, specifically the SD and Gestapo, have their right collar tabs blank? In the Waffen SS, there were the double SS runes but why did the Allgemeine SS decide not to you them? They were the symbol of the SS after all. If anyone can answer this, I'd be most grateful. Regards!

[Emerson Begolly]

Some Allgemeine collar tabs did have runes. SD & Gestapo wore blank. I think that the numbers represented units and groups. Hope I helped!

Em.

[Brig]

I believe the SD's were black for the entirety of the Reich, correct?

[HPL2008]

Yes, the SD always wore a blank collar patch.

As for the Sig-runes: These were never used by the Allgemeine SS, but rather exclusively by the full-time, armed, paramilitary SS units. The development of the runic collar patches roughly breaks down like this:

1934: The members of the early full-time armed SS security units, the Politische Bereitschaften , started to wear collar patches with the runes and an additional arabic numeral (1, 2 and 3) or, in the case of the Leibstandarte, just the runes.

1935 - 1940: From the Politische Bereitschaften developed the pre-war forerunner of the Waffen-SS, the SS-Verfügungstruppe which used collar patches with the runes and an additional number, letter or symbol, while the Leibstandarte continued to wear just the runes.

1940: An order of 10 May rendered the collar patches with runes and additional numbers, letters, or symbols obsolete. From this date on, just the runes were to be worn by the Waffen SS, a term which became official in this year. These patches were universally used by the Waffen-SS until the end of the war. (With the exception of units who were assigned other collar patches, such as the Totenkopf-Division or units composed of foreigners or ethnic Germans, but that's a whole different study.)

See also these threads:

http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=13978
http://www.thirdreichforum.com/phpBB2/v ... hp?t=11484
http://daggers.infopop.net/2/OpenTopic? ... 6233083196

[Jochen]

The "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" Has SS on his Collar

[Peter J. Hertel]

My guess, for the reason that the SD and Gestapo wore blank collar patches, was do to the fact they were allowed to wear the SS uniform without actually being members of the SS.

But I stand to be corrected.

Regards,

Peter

[Paul Hanson]

When you see SD personnel you will see some with the SD badge and some without. One had to be a member of the SS in the SD to wear the SD diamond. So rather than have some SD with SS runes and some without, the SD diamond was the marker of SS members.

PH

[HPL2008]

My guess, for the reason that the SD and Gestapo wore blank collar patches, was do to the fact they were allowed to wear the SS uniform without actually being members of the SS.

Sorry Peter, but I really can't imagine this to be the reason.
A "true" SD-member was indeed also a member of the SS, although it is also true that members of the Sipo (= security police, i.e. Kripo and Gestapo) were under certain conditions allowed to wear SS uniforms. Had the express reason for the introduction of the blank collar patch indeed been to mark it's wearers as "not-really-SS-members", the "true" SD-men would certainly have objected to this. Besides, if this were true, it would have been much more logical to have the SD-men wear a collar patch with some sort of appropriate insignia and to reserve the blank collar patch for the non-SS Sipo-men.
We should also bear in mind that blank collar patches were by no means limited to the SD: For example, they were also worn by all personnel of the SS Hauptämter (= main offices) - including Himmler's personal staff- and the Oberabschnitte (= districts), in other words, men who were not only regular SS members, but also worked for the highest level institutions of the SS administration.