The Coburg Badge

 

 
The Coburg Badge (Coburger Abzeichen) was recognised as the first national award of the NSDAP, and later as the top NSDAP award in the party. Hitler ordered the Coburg Badge to be struck on October 14, 1932 to commemorate the event that took place ten years earlier. It was to honour the 800-strong army of SA stormtroopers and a band who had travelled with Hitler by train to Coburg for a rally. Over there, they pitched street battles with the police and the communists but eventually gained an upper hand and they celebrated with a victory. This day was known as the Deutscher Tag in Coburg (German Day in Coburg). 

The badge was designed by Hitler himself based on a sketch. It measured 40mm wide and 54mm high, cast out of bronze and hand finished. The design features sword facing downwards across the face of a swastika and surrounded by an oval wreath MIT HITLER IN COBURG 1922-1932 (With Hitler in Coburg 1922-1932). On the top of the badge shows the Coburg Castle and its surrounding landscape. Next to the badge is a commemorative plaque for a winner during an event held between 17-19 October 1941 at Coburg. The plaque is extremely well made with a highly detailed brass engraving of the Coburg badge, under the watchful eye of a German eagle, standing in front of an Iron Cross. The wood plate measures 17.5cm x 11.8cm and with the manufacturer’s name, Lauer Nürnberg stamped on the bottom. From author’s collection.

Feldherrnhalle Martyrs' Souvenir Plaque

 
The Feldherrnhalle Martyrs' Souvenir Plaque would have probably been sold during one of the Anniversaries of 9 November 1923. The plaque, modelled after the Mahnmal in der Feldherrnhalle in Munich. So what happened on that day? On the morning of 9 November 1923, Adolf Hitler and his followers marched to the Feldherrenhalle where a confrontation soon arose with the Bavarian State Police which then became bloody with 16 of Hitler’s men and four policemen killed. After the seizure of power by Hitler in 1933, the Feldherrenhalle became a special place of Nazi propaganda and on the Eastern side, a plaque with the names of the 16 martyrs were honored. The plaque was removed after the war in 1945.  This plaque came with several other postcards from the era. The plaque was cast in an aluminum alloy and affixed using 3 nails onto a black-stained wooden base. From author’s collection.

The Generalluftzeugmeister Badge

The Generalluftzeugmeister (or GL for short) was the civilian Supply and Procurement Service that handled many of the Luftwaffe's technical duties such as testing and requisitioning supplies. The organisation employed a large number of civilians and they were given a distinct cap badge to wear in order to distinguish it from regular units of the Luftwaffe. It was said that before the war, members wore a visor hat with the standard Luftwaffe eagle national emblem, but later the insignia was redesigned specifically for the Generalluftzeugmeister to include a cog wheel encircling the eagle. However, most period photos show that this was also worn as a breast badge where most men would wear the fliegerbluse with red piping. The badge has been found marked and unmarked where the above shows one in aluminium and a later war variant in heavy tombak and with longer prongs. From author’s collection.

Eagles of the National Socialist Motor Corps

The National Socialist Motor Corps (or Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK for short) was a paramilitary organization that existed from 1931 to 1945. The organisation was headed by Adolf Hühnlein from 1934 and after Hühnlein's death in 1942, Erwin Krauss took over as Korpsführer (Corps Leader). It was initially formed as a motorized corps of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and when its membership grew, it became an independent organization with an aim to educate members in motoring skills such as the operation and maintenance of high performance motorcycles and automobiles. From 1935 onward, the NSKK also provided training for Panzer crews of the German Army. The NSKK eagle insignias pictured above were used on the first pattern motorcyclists' crash helmets, or on automobile radiator grilles. These were very well made, showing excellent details to the feathers and details. In particular, those eagles mounted onto automobiles tend to be made in cast aluminium or an alloy, whereas those for helmets tend to be struck hollow in aluminum. A second pattern styled insignia for crash helmets, and a smaller insignia for visor caps exist. From author's own collection.

The RMBO Eagle for Eastern Territories

The Reichsministerium für die besetzeten Ostgebiete, or RMBO for short, was the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories created by Adolf Hitler on July 1941. The organisation was headed by Alfred Rosenberg to control the vast areas captured by the Germans in Eastern Europe and Russia. Rosenberg had presented Hitler with his plan for the organization of the conquered Eastern territories, suggesting the establishment of new administrative districts, to replace the previously Soviet-controlled territories with new Reichskommissariats to include Ostland (Baltic countries and Belarus), Ukraine (Ukraine and nearby territories), Kaukasus (Caucasus area), Moskau (Moscow metropolitan area and the rest of near Russia areas).
 

The RMBO was a civil ministry-styled government and was not part of the NSDAP Party branch. It was created by the German civil authorities as an administrative unit of the Grossdeutsches Reich. The governing people were largely party functionaries and senior SS, but it was also staffed by foreign office people because of its ambiguous status of being a German "colony" or administrative district without being part of Germany proper. It was planned to become part of Germany itself following the war and "Germanization" of the population. This also meant that these territories were not under the purvey of the Reichszeugmeisterei (RZM) being the national material control office of Third Reich Germany. There has been numerous discussions about such artefacts from Eastern territories where it should never have come under the RZM and thus objects marked as such have not been recognised by collectors to be original. It was also known that an American company, WW2 Products Ltd., based in St. Louis, manufactured reproductions of these metal RMBO eagles that have a RZM marking on the reverse. The RMBO eagle below has been identified as a late-war visor cap insignia that does not have RZM markings on the reverse. An identical RMBO eagle can also be found today at the Army Museum in Paris (musee de l'armee), at the Contemporary department, the Two World Wars 1871-1945 section (Les deux guerres mondiales 1871 - 1945). From author's own collection. source: Wikipedia / WAF