Lapel badge with selectable colour "dot" indicator.
Article about: Good afternoon gents, I have had this lapel badge for a while and have never been totally certain of the intended purpose. Between the main plate of the badge and the screw plate there is a
Lapel badge with selectable colour "dot" indicator.
Good afternoon gents,
I have had this lapel badge for a while and have never been totally certain of the intended purpose.
Between the main plate of the badge and the screw plate there is a four coloured disc which can be rotated to show any of the four colours through the aperture at the top of the face.
The only purpose I can imagine is to indicate some difference concerning the wearer at any given time. EG,; role, team membership, armed/unarmed, operational deployment etc.
I read recently that it may be a Stasi item worn in plain clothes with the colour displayed indicating discrete information to others involved.
The design and construction make a DDR item for sure but for what purpose?
I did encounter Stasi personnel in uniform whilst serving in Berlin but I never (knowingly) came accross any in plain clothes. Of course that is the point of working in plain clothes so why wear a badge? That said, some of my colleagues and I occasionally wore a lapel badge that indicated being armed and whether it was with a pistol or MP5k (EG The World Bank Conference 1988 at the Funkturm Messe which was then in the British Sector).
So, does anyone know for sure what I have here?
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
An identical piece is pictured in the book The Ultimate Spy by H. Keith Melton (although I have the suspicion that this may well be the same source that you used). The caption says:
"Stasi lapel pin. When watching a demonstration or a meeting, Stasi officers wore lapel pins to identify themselves to each other and to informers. This Stasi pin [...] has a revolving disk that can display four different identifying colors."
If this identification is correct and I had to make a guess as to the pin's purpose, I would says it was worn for occasions when the personnel on duty was not operating undercover/icognito, but just under "low profile" conditions or perhaps even consciously wanted to send a subtle message to those present that they were being watched. I agree that the colours may identify different roles for the respective operation. An alternative theory (pure speculation on my part) would be that there were different "colors of the day" announced on short notice to on-duty personnel so that someone displaying the incorrect color could be spotted as an impostor with a stolen badge. (I got that idea from the different-colored armbands worn on snow camo by German and Soviet soldiers during WW2, where daily orders also regulated the band's color and on which arm it was to be worn.)
I once read that Stasi personnel working undercover used another kind of "identifying badge" to make themselves recognizable to their colleagues: These were designed to look like tourists' souvenir pins or tinnies; only those in the know were aware of their true meaning.
I dug around a bit and found this thread on the WAF where Stasi ID pins - including the "souvenir-style" ones - are discussed (note post # 13 in particular):
Thanks Andreas, that pretty much matches my own train of thought on the subject.
No, I haven't read that book, is it any good?
As I say, I did encounter some of these blokes in uniform and we were told to watch out for "discrete" lapel badges worn in plain clothes but I don't recall having seen any but as you point out there is a difference between "covert" duty and simply plain clothes
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
It's informative, but not very in-depth, but that's in the nature of the book: It's like a nicely-illustrated "coffee-table book" showing hundreds of different pieces of spy gear from many decades and from all around the world. (Weapons and assassination devices, sabotage equipment, surveillance- and communication technology, concealments, E & E tools etc. etc., ranging from the mundane to inventions that "Q" would have been proud of). It came out in 1996, which is when I bought it.
"Farbwechselabzeichen, sog. Stasi-Ampel
-Abzeichen mit Staatswappen und Sichtfenster im oberen Teil.
-dahinter eine Drehscheibe mit 4 verschiedenen Farben, welche nach einem vorher
vereinbarten Zeitplan eingestellt wurden."
["Colour-change badge, so-called 'Stasi Traffic Lights'
- Badge with national emblem and indicator window in the upper part.
- behind this, a rotating disc with 4 different colours, which were set according to a previously stipulated schedule]
If this is accurate, the colours were changed several times during a mission for extra security. Makes perfect sense, especially in the case of the "stolen badge" scenario: Even if an infiltrator took such a badge off a Stasi operative during a mission in progress, he wouldn't know when to change the colour and which one would be the next.
It's informative, but not very in-depth, but that's in the nature of the book: It's like a nicely-illustrated "coffee-table book" showing hundreds of different pieces of spy gear from many decades and from all around the world. (Weapons and assassination devices, sabotage equipment, surveillance- and communication technology, concealments, E & E tools etc. etc., ranging from the mundane to inventions that "Q" would have been proud of). It came out in 1996, which is when I bought it.
Thanks I'll look out for it.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
"Farbwechselabzeichen, sog. Stasi-Ampel
-Abzeichen mit Staatswappen und Sichtfenster im oberen Teil.
-dahinter eine Drehscheibe mit 4 verschiedenen Farben, welche nach einem vorher
vereinbarten Zeitplan eingestellt wurden."
["Colour-change badge, so-called 'Stasi Traffic Lights'
- Badge with national emblem and indicator window in the upper part.
- behind this, a rotating disc with 4 different colours, which were set according to a previously stipulated schedule]
If this is accurate, the colours were changed several times during a mission for extra security. Makes perfect sense, especially in the case of the "stolen badge" scenario: Even if an infiltrator took such a badge off a Stasi operative during a mission in progress, he wouldn't know when to change the colour and which one would be the next.
That would make it a simple but effective mechanism of Opsec (operational security) which would be included in the "Orders" briefing for an operation as part of what NATO forces call the "Co-Ordinating instructions" section of the formal orders and I expect it would involve the change being made at a predetermined time or on receipt of a codeword just like changing radio frequencies. As they say; K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid)
This is becoming interesting!
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Lapel badge with selectable colour "dot" indicator.
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by Watchdog
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