18th SS Horst Wessel Collar Tab

Product Description: This 18th SS Horst Wessel Collar Tab is a nice, unissued example of this desirable piece of Waffen-SS insignia. This tab has never been affixed to a uniform, and was likely among those found at Dachau near the end of the war. The tab is made of a typical black SS wool badge cloth, and features a machine embroidered runic “SA” emblem, in silver-gray thread. This emblem was intended for wear by members of the 18. SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier-Division “Horst Wessel,” formed in 1944 and made up of mostly ethnic Germans from Hungary. The embroidery is perfect, and the fabric is free of any stains, holes or other damage. On the reverse, this 18th SS Horst Wessel tab shows typical white stitching as well as a textbook tan buckram stiffener material. There are no stitch holes and only extremely slight age toning. This collar tab remains in outstanding, near mint condition, and would be hard to upgrade.

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 bodyguard 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 widespread 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, from hand-embroidered tabs worn by officers to mass produced embroidered and machine woven types that were used on combat uniforms.

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