SS Caucasus Volunteer Collar Tab

Product Description: This is a nice example of the SS Caucasus Volunteer Collar Tab. During WWII, non-Germanic foreign volunteers in the Waffen-SS were not authorized to wear the SS runic collar tab, and so a wide variety of specific alternate tabs was created for these volunteer units. This SS Caucasus Volunteer Collar Tab was intended for wear by Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Caucasian volunteers. This is one of four collar tab designs that have been attributed to the 30. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS. This example is typical of those constructed at the Dachau clothing and insignia factory. It was likely removed from the Dachau concentration camp at the time of its liberation. The emblem is machine embroidered in gray thread on a black wool fabric, which is secured with white stitches to a stiffener made of tightly woven buckram.  This Caucasus SS Volunteer collar tab is a textbook original piece, and shows only very minor age.

Historical Description: Regulations for the SS Collar Tab went through quite an evolution in just a short 16 year period.  The first SS Collar Tabs were introduced in 1929 by Heinrich Himmler as part of the newly introduced SS uniform code. Initially, tabs were worn by both lower rank SS men and their senior leaders. Lower ranks would wear a rank tab as well as a numbered unit identification tab, with senior leaders wearing their rank tabs on both collars. In 1933 the well known “SS” runic tab was adopted by Hitler’s personal body guard detachment, the “Leibstandarte” or “LAH”. The LAH used this runic tab in lieu of the numerical unit identification tab to identify them as members of the elite unit protecting the “Führer”. In 1934 the runic “SS” tabs were again adopted for use by the early “SS-VT” units. This adoption eventually led to the wide spread use of SS runic tabs by German Divisions; the later non-german volunteer units would not be permitted to wear the runes, and bore their own unit designed patch instead. SS Collar tabs can be found in an extraordinary variety of numbers, designs, and pipings depending on unit and rank.

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