Question about Edelweiss badges on visor caps

[locloc08]

Hey guys, I'm a little confused about the nature of Edelweiss attachments on visor caps. At first I was under the impression that the only men who wore Edelweiss badges were those serving as a Gebirgsjäger.

However I have seen caps of a different service with them, like the cap attached below. And I have also seen Gebirgsjäger caps without an Edelweiss badge.

The cap attached is artillery. With the Edelweiss does it mean the original owner was just an artillery man stationed in the mountains?

My original concept of a Gebirgsjäger was that it was simply a "Mountain troop". But now I'm not really clear on the job of an actual Gebirgsjäger. For example, how would a Gebirgsjäger differ from say, a regular infantry man stationed in the mountains. (Or did white piped caps never have Edelweiss??)

Thanks for any help clarifying, guys.

[HPL2008]

The Edelweiß badge was only authorized for soldiers and officials of the Gebirgstruppe (= Mountain Troops), it had nothing to do with the location were a soldier was stationed.

The Gebirgstruppe, however, was not actually a service branch like Infantry, Engineers, Artillery, Armor etc.; it was really a collective term for the mountain troop elements of all service branches.

This included the Gebirgsjäger, who were the actual Mountain Infantry, i.e. light infantry specifically trained, organized and equipped for mountain warfare. They wore the well-known bright green Waffenfarbe.

Apart from them, the Gebirgstruppe also included other branches like Gebirgspioniere (= Mountain Engineers, using black branch color), Gebirgsartillerie (= Mountain Artillery, red branch color) or Nachrichten personnel (= Signals, yellow branch color).

Furthermore, soldiers who had once served with the Mountain Troops and were transferred elsewhere were reluctant to remove their Edelweiß insignia and in violation of uniform regulations continued to wear them.
Eventually, the powers-that-be gave up to fight this practice and allowed former members of the Gebirgstruppe who had seen frontline service with them to continue wearing the Edelweiß insignia.

[martinsuper]

Cool visor! Do you own it? Or are you thinking of picking it up?

-Martin

[locloc08]

HPL, thank you very much for the information.

Martin, the cap is not mine, though I am fond of it. That is, if it is in fact real. I believe that to be the case, though I am no expert and these things often give me a headache...

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Tony, the cap is real.

The only possible issue is the Edelweiß and when it was put on the cap. Generally speaking, any cap which was purchased with extra insignia such as an Edelweiß or traditions badge, would have a greater gap between the eagle and cockade insignia to accommodate this extra badge. But if the soldier added it himself after buying the cap, this extra space would not be present. Close inspection of the cap in hand to check for any fading under the badge, wear around it etc would be needed. Worse case scenario is that a collector has added it last week...

Cheers, Ade.

[locloc08]

Thanks for the info, Ade. Good to know.

[Frog]

Tons of fake EW badges around, for sure. Seen a couple on KM visors purporting to be from U-124, U-515 or others. Stems or not. Looks like a straightforward pin - why not pull it out and have a look underneath?

[hartcoemt]

Did the infantry have any visor caps with the edelweiss on them?

[Adrian Stevenson]

Inf with a white piped cap would not wear it.

[hartcoemt]

Adrian, what was the reason for inf. with white piping not wearing the edelweiss badge?