Italian SS Volunteer Collar Tab

Product Description: This Italian SS Volunteer Collar Tab has a “been there” look. It’s made out of typical black SS wool fabric, and features an Italian fascist emblem machine embroidered in silver-gray thread, with a red accent. This tab was intended to be worn by members of the Italian SS Brigade, and later the “29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (italienische Nr. 1).” This piece shows age and wear, with moth nips throughout, as well as some small losses to the embroidered threads on the fasces. There is some toning and discoloration as well. The reverse of this Italian SS Volunteer Collar Tab shows a textbook tan buckram stiffener. The black wool has become partially unglued or unstitched from the stiffener, but it is all there. There is no RZM tag, which is correct for these wartime Waffen-SS collar tabs. This desirable piece of SS foreign volunteer insignia is loaded with character, and is in good condition.

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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