Reichswehr - 1935 Unit Marked

[Fred Green]

Hello,

It is 2nd company, 2nd Machine Gun Battalion. The Roman numeral II states for the status of the equipment. It is not the I class Issue but the II class issue. It has nothing to do with unit identification. Great buckle by the way.

Fred

[Fred Green]

Hello,

I like Reichsheer and early Third Reich stuff!

Fred

[weller]

Very nice Fred - thanks for showing. I like that shooting award and the belt/buckle sets

[MAP]

I was close

Great learning thread.

[Wewelsburg]

So now you have Machine Gun Battalion Buckle That's awesome

Great with such cool history behind the buckle!

[Ben Evans]

Jeff

Maschinen Gewehr Batalion 2.Kompanie II.Zug

Machine gun battalion, 2nd company and Zug is a platoon size of men so I would say 2nd platoon

[Fred Green]

Hello,

Page 76, Volume 1, "UNIFORMS & TRADITIONS OF THE GERMAN ARMY 1933-1945" specifically explains these markings.

"Clothing articles of the same kind were classified according to their wearing value into grades or "Garnituren". The wearing value of every single article was evaluated and controlled at the yearly clothing inspections, The highest grade, Garnitur I, was new or nearly new, and was used as parade dress. The lowest grade, Garnitur IV was for drill duty"

The description shows typical markings with the company first, then period and slash, followed by type of unit..AR,IR,....,then unit designation and finally the garnitur status.

With a 100,000 man army this was pretty easy to do. Sometime around the expansion of the Heer in 1936 this marking system was discontinued.

Fred

[Adrian Stevenson]

Fred is correct.

A super buckle.

Cheers, Ade.

PS: I love your display Fred. The feldgrau wool in the Riker mounts is a nice touch.

[weller]

Thanks guys for the information. Here is a 1936 Heer I have, also nicely unit marked. Thought an interesting addition to this informative thread

Maker = Gebruder Kugel & Fink - 1936

[Fred Green]

Nice. 10th Company IR 82

Fred