Luftwaffe or Para Dogtag / Erkennugsmarken

[Andymelvin06]

Good evening all, could anyone (Matt, I hope you're on here ) let me know what this one is? Thanks guys.

[Matt L]

Well the marking would seem to be 6./ Zerstörergeschwader 76, but it's clearly not a formally-issued disc; it's field made at best. The problem is that Luftwaffe flying units (and Fallschirmjäger units) used coded discs, not plain text ones as far as I've ever seen. 6./ ZG 76 used the codes B65142 and B65223, so I don't know just why there'd be an un-coded one. As early as the summer of 1940 coded discs were in use- I've seen ones recovered from crashes in England from then. I suppose it's not impossible that the Luftwaffe didn't use codes right at the beginning of the war, or instituted the system just after it started, but I don't know of any proof to that effect.

As far as the disc itself goes, there's no way to authenticate a field-made disc; by it's very nature it's atypical and usually unique. There's nothing obviously fake about this one; the 'N' for 'Nummer' is actually not something I'd expect a faker to think of doing, so looks legitimate- except for the whole plain text problem.

[Andymelvin06]

Hi Matt, thanks for the info. The disk came from a pow camp site in the north of England a couple of days ago. It was lying just a few inches down in the entrance of a rabbit hole so it was a lucky find. So we know it's 100% genuine but it did look a little different. Best wishes and thanks, Andy.

[Matt L]

OH interesting- I wonder if it's camp-made then; I doubt a guy would know the code or maybe wouldn't be permitted to use it in a POW camp, so made a plain text one to carry? It's not an issued disc, that's for certain anyway but I bet it has an interesting story...

[Daz D]

Hi Matt yes the Dogtag is POW field made, my first thought was Fallschirmjager.