Categories Widget (top-down)The Potsdam badge in silver was the one given to active participants on the day. The brown version (see picture) was available for purchase by spectators. Regulations dated 15.5.1937 were introduced to stop the brown version being worn from that year. The silver version was unaffected by this and could continue to be worn.
The Arbeiterjugend badge. This first appeared in September 19271 and after the full introduction of the standard diamond HJ membership badge in 1933 many HJ members continued to wear the Arbeiterjugend pin as an outward sign of their long service. When the HJ golden honour badge was introduced in 1934 it made the Arbeiterjugend pin (the regulation calls it the 'old HJ badge') irrelevant and it was no longer permitted to be worn on the uniform. It was however permitted for wear on civilian clothing after that point (the same exception applied to the first and second pattern Jungvolk membership badges). The book 'Aufbau und Abzeichen der Hitler-Jugend' from 1940 shows that this was still the case even at that late stage.
Because it would have been too difficult to issue the HJ honour badge in the same way as the NSDAP honour badge '(where full records of who joined and when when were kept), the HJ badge was issued by application. Those who had been members of the HJ/BDM/DJ/JM and NSS prior to the 1st of October 1932 and whose membership had remained unbroken up to the date of application were elegible. Two referees were also required to substantiate the applicant's eligibility.
There were different qualification criteria for those foreign youth organisations which were incorporated into the HJ in later years. In Poland for example, the honour badge could be awarded to someone who had been a member of a volkksdeutsche youth organisation for at least three years prior to 1.9.1939. There were other qualifying criteria in addition to this.
Notes on the HJ honour badge:
A pin safety catch was made compulsory by order in 1939 as a reaction to the amount of badges which were being lost. The 1936 RZM price catalogue shows that at that time there were two versions of the badge: one with and one without a safety catch. The 1939 regulation I mention above says 'due to the continuing losses of honour badges I feel compelled to provide for the attachment of a safety device to the badge'. The regulation then gives prices for the A and B badges with this new 'patented catch mechanism'. This would appear to show that an improved version of the safety mechanism was introduced for 1939 and I assume this to be the barrel catch type.
From 1940 replacement HJ Honour badges were no longer issued with the recipient's original serial number.
________________________
1 Institut für Zeitgeschichte, München Fa88/Fasz. 360, Bl. 4-7
Recent Forum Posts
