Estonian SS Buckle

[Jean Pierre Redeuilh]

Buckles such as this were worn in wartime by Estonian volunteers who quite often denazified their buckles by erasing the Swastika as they were fighting for Estonia not the Nazis !!l

Altering uniform or any of its components was not tolerated and greatly punished. Forget the "period" aleration (except if made during prison life - if any when caught by Russians with an SS uniform...)

[Paul D]

Altering uniform or any of its components was not tolerated and greatly punished. Forget the "period" aleration (except if made during prison life - if any when caught by Russians with an SS uniform...)

Really !! So no uniform or kit was ever altered when the troops were out of the barracks and into the field ?

[Jean Pierre Redeuilh]

Really !! So no uniform or kit was ever altered when the troops were out of the barracks and into the field ?

I am not talking about alteration for the purpose of repair or to temporary increase the uniform or its components efficiency but definitive alteration for unique personnal reason.
Each uniform component is considered as a rental and should be re-used by someone else if needed. As an example, a buckle can be sprayed pink as long it could be sprayed back in an other regulation color. But in your case the buckle is totally destroyed and cannot be reissued back in its original condition to anybody else. Got the difference ?

Whoever the "reputable" dealer can be, he sold you a buckle which was NOT modified in field. It could have been modified either during jail time (POW camp) or after war.

[Paul D]

After serving 6 years in the Brirtish Army yes i have " Got the difference ".

I have never said that the buckle came from a dealer or that i have any knowledge whether it was altered during war time , pow time or post war.

What i do know is that just because rules and regulations stated that a piece of kit should not be altered troops do not necessary follow those rules once in the field and to a certain extent a freedom of choice is tolerated, with much kit never ever seeing the stores again to be reissued.

Rules and regulations like that only apply to REMFS and Barrack room soldiers.

In this case this was a practice carried out by Estonian SS Volunteers but when this was done to this particular buckle who knows !

regards

Paul

[Jean Pierre Redeuilh]

In this case this was a practice carried out by Estonian SS Volunteers

So we should be able to have other examples recorded. Unfortunately there is none (on SS buckles).

[Paul D]

I Have been to Estonia and spoken with Estonian SS Veterans about many things including this issue , i'm not saying that this "E" design was commonly done but the de nazification of buckles was a relativley common practice amonst them.

As i have stated quite a few times now i'm not saying that this buckle was altered in wartime but the practice amongst Estonian Waffen SS of altering the buckles did go on.

I'll post another couple of examples.

regards

Paul

[Paul D]

Another 2 SS Buckles from Estonia

[Paul D]

It is a quite strange question, political, but seems that runes skull and SS eagle was good for them. I know that a lot of Estonians did made modifications in the war time, and I suspect that someone will brake a nice buckle nowadays, that it at least very stupid. Even the originaly added sign, strongly disvalued original buckle.
I did seen, and have a great selection of the trench art buckles, but I firstly need to find them all, there not only Estonian converted items, and truely some examples are very impressive and nice

Dimas has much more experience than me regarding this and in his above reply he does state that a lot of Estonians made modifications during wartime !!

[Jean Pierre Redeuilh]

Out of Sherbrooke (Québec - Canada) POW Camp. No Estonian ever been there. Just a jail practice or no buckle to wear in camp.