The gates of hell were opened and we accepted the invitation to enter" 26/880 Lance Sgt, Edward Dyke. 26th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers , ( 3rd Tyneside Irish )
1st July 1916
Thought shall be the harder , heart the keener,
Courage the greater as our strength faileth.
Here lies our leader ,in the dust of his greatness.
Who leaves him now , be damned forever.
We who are old now shall not leave this Battle,
But lie at his feet , in the dust with our leader
House Carles at the Battle of Hastings
very nice.
Paul
Is this supposedly a period "conversion" or a post war sentimental modification by a former member of the Estonian SS ? I take it the conversion is taking out the swastika and representing an E of sorts instead. Wearing or being allowed to wear a buckle like this just does not make sense. Also, the colour of the ground off area does not seem to match with the aged colour of the buckle overall.
Regards,
David
Looks like the swas was just drilled out to remove it??? or am i missing something....
looks like a fresh modification to me...
Difficult to say David whether this is a wartime or post war conversion by the veteran , the E with the sword is the Divisonal tac sign of the 20th Waffen Gren Div der SS (Estnische n0 1 ).
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 !!
It has come from a very reputable source in Estonia
cheers
Paul
The gates of hell were opened and we accepted the invitation to enter" 26/880 Lance Sgt, Edward Dyke. 26th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers , ( 3rd Tyneside Irish )
1st July 1916
Thought shall be the harder , heart the keener,
Courage the greater as our strength faileth.
Here lies our leader ,in the dust of his greatness.
Who leaves him now , be damned forever.
We who are old now shall not leave this Battle,
But lie at his feet , in the dust with our leader
House Carles at the Battle of Hastings
Paul
It is a "new" form of conversion to myself at least, although I freely admit that I am not an enthusiast or devotee toward the SS buckle.
Perhaps you have hit the nail on the head by confirming "...as they were fighting for Estonia not the Nazis !!...".
Why though wear an SS buckle with still, the well known SS eagle and SS motto still intact ?
Very odd and very interesting.
Regards,
David
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
Regards,
Dimas
my Skype: warrelics
The wear to the buckle in hand without the flash photography is more commensurate with the general wear but when exactly it was done who knows.
The Estonian SS units were of course SS trained and saw themselves as an elite unit and part of the Waffen SS but not Nazis so the motto and eagle did mean something to them.
I have seen other denazified SS buckles in Estonia but German buckles were also denazified by Russian troops who used the German belt buckles.
cheers
Paul
The gates of hell were opened and we accepted the invitation to enter" 26/880 Lance Sgt, Edward Dyke. 26th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers , ( 3rd Tyneside Irish )
1st July 1916
Thought shall be the harder , heart the keener,
Courage the greater as our strength faileth.
Here lies our leader ,in the dust of his greatness.
Who leaves him now , be damned forever.
We who are old now shall not leave this Battle,
But lie at his feet , in the dust with our leader
House Carles at the Battle of Hastings
The gates of hell were opened and we accepted the invitation to enter" 26/880 Lance Sgt, Edward Dyke. 26th Bn Northumberland Fusiliers , ( 3rd Tyneside Irish )
1st July 1916
Thought shall be the harder , heart the keener,
Courage the greater as our strength faileth.
Here lies our leader ,in the dust of his greatness.
Who leaves him now , be damned forever.
We who are old now shall not leave this Battle,
But lie at his feet , in the dust with our leader
House Carles at the Battle of Hastings
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