I'm putting together a very early war Heer impression. Not so necessarily for a reenactment because I know those guys don't typically like these types of impressions, but I like doing some exercising just to find out as much as I can about history from the real fabric of it. I've got the tunic down, an Atthefront m36 with the proper sleeve height, down to the wrist bone. However, I'm struggling with figuring out what type of insignia to use. First is the collar tabs. I was at first planning on using tabs like these
But after doing a little bit of research into earlier war uniforms, I found out that sometimes, original tunics (or possibly fakes!) would come with collar tabs using a sort of backing piece that the actual litzen would be sewn onto. These would be two separate pieces, the litzen sewn onto a harder wool backing.
Here is an example of a tunic using those types of litzen, on right (from atthefront)
Another, on the right. A heer uniform again
and a pair of litzen made in the same fasion
But doing a little bit more research, I also found tabs that looked like this, with a litzen pattern stitched into the tab almost like a piece of cardboard with wool or fabric wrapped around it.
I also heard that sometimes the backing was placed on the inside of the collar, with the litzen stitched on top, but that doesn't make any sense to me because then you'd just have a square piece of stitching on the top with the litzen inside of it.
My question then, is any of this authentic? It makes sense to me because something like this would make the stitching job much easier on the troops and the manufacturer, and it does seem like something the early war factories would have done.
