How many makers of the diamond-shape Hitler Youth membership badge were there?

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Yes Oleg.Very interesting i have only been here for a few weeks and i have learned lots.
Must find some more,best regards Pete
 
Lets not forget the "extremely" scare HJ membership badge marked ZEUGMEISTEREI ÖSTERREICH. i dont believe that i have seen more than 2 or 3 before, and never any for sale!
images courtesy of Korgossen.
Manufactured in Austria, just weeks before the NSDAP ban! (Could of course have been made after the ban, underground - but then ONLY up until the Juliputch of 1934! and certainly not after - and we would need to prove that the Austrian market was manufacturing for the German market after the 33 ban - which i personally dont see as happening)

I forgot, i have a good condition M1/66 marked HJ badge if anyone needs one.

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You guys are making me nervious about my HJ member pin with all of this. How about a M1/102 marked HJ badge with the RZM mark? Is that ok?
 
I wil send pics as soon as possible. I have a question though, where do you guys find all the reference material on who was approved to manufacture certain HJ Badges and Pins. This is really facinating stuff.
 
Hi,

Good information can be found in the oddest of places but obviously only someone who can read German to a good standard is going to be able to understand it when they come across it. Indeed, the ability to read German is a prerequisite for any meaningful research. The most obvious places to find the gold are archives, period books and magazines, period orders and regulations, modern autobiographies of TR figures but as I say, you can find period information in the oddest of places. You just have to keep at it. There is a lot of information out there for those who have the energy to keep digging but sometimes it the case that finding the information is the easiest part. The difficult part is convincing the general collecting community that something that has become ingrained and is accepted as the truth is, in fact, a load of tosh.
 
Nice one Garry a well made point,keep digging is the answer.
I will have to learn the hard way i guess.I have enough problem with my own native English.ha ha
Look forward to seing the badge Panzerman.
Oh Garry how do you put your name at the bottom of the page with the tick that says like this.Regards Pete
 
petesav said:
how do you put your name at the bottom of the page with the tick that says like this.Regards Pete
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I couldn't resist
:swiss

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Are my HJ Pins the real thing?

Here are my HJ Pin's. Please take a look at it and let me know if they are real.

The standard HJ Pin is a M1/102 with the RZM Mark.

The Student HJ Pin is tuff to read but it has the RZM Mark under the pin on one side and M1/15 on the other side of the pin though it is hard to read.

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what is he general thought on painted badges then, most people see them as late war but are they that or just variations used by different makers
 
stuart said:
what is he general thought on painted badges then, most people see them as late war but are they that or just variations used by different makers
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It`s a good question, and the only way to answer it would be to look at all the small badges produced in Germany and the annexted terr. from mid 1942 onwards. We see a change to lesser quality metals with small badges anyway before zinc, around 1939-1940. Also taking non-official badges into consideration. Then you can clearly see the change, which also applied to official badges. You can even go one step further and break down the zinc years in early, mid and late as well.. it`s actually a subject on it`s own, that i (think and hope) have addressed well in my book.

As i was trying to figure this out myself, and finally did figure it out, it became clear just how many trivialities and small things we brush over with a fleeting "oh that was late war" or some other one-liner as an explanation, the more i realized just how narrow minded we have all be looking at certain things, even though they are a complicated and intense subject on their own, that warranted in-depth coverage long ago!
 
Thanks Jo .
a very good point made a lot clearer there.
I always have a certain amount of doubt when looking at these painted ones.But i guess as long as the main good pointers are there on a badge .I to need to be a bit more open minded with these types.
Must say i am looking to get my hands on a copy of your book.Best regards Pete
 
the late war theory on these badges has always been based on the fact that germany was losing the war materials where getting hard to come by so they must have used lesser quality materials to make badges etc.
but have never seen any proof of this is there any period paperwork that states that lesser materials should be used on badges and other items due to wartime shortages.

also was there any regs about what materials had to be used for items or was it down to the maker to use what he had available,what im trying to get at is if a maker was out of the standard material but had zinc available was there anything stopping him using that instead because if there isnt these painted badges could be from any period
 
stuart said:
but have never seen any proof of this is there any period paperwork that states that lesser materials should be used on badges and other items due to wartime shortages.
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Yes, documented quite well in the UM, but pertaining to the LDO and to Awards not badges. The various meetings that took place of Big Wigs incl. a rep. from the RZM to discuss exactly this. (dont loose sight of the fact that these membership badges were trivialities back then, 25 and 35 CENT items. Not prestigeous Decoractions meant to be worn and kept forever )

stuart said:
the late war theory on these badges has always been based on the fact that germany was losing the war materials where getting hard to come by so they must have used lesser quality materials to make badges
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Well i dont know where it comes from, or if it`s even a theory, but when you look at the small badges evolution from 1920 to 1933, then from 1933 to 1935 and from 1935 to 1939, (all small badges) then the change is clear, although not documented that from xx only zinc must be used. This would have depended on area, how many badges a maker produced, how much material he had... This is why, if you did what i said on the above post, but also considered Austrian badges as well into that time frame, then it becomes clear that a change to zinc did not happen overnight across the board, but slowly, with the Austrian makers being the last to use zinc for "everything" as some German manufacturers were a few years before.

stuart said:
if a maker was out of the standard material but had zinc available was there anything stopping him using that instead because if there isnt these painted badges could be from any period
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Michael Tucker claims this too in his book, that Zinc membership badges were offered together with messing, BEFORE the war. It is nonsense at it`s best, and not supported by anything, (as everything he wrote was[not]) in fact once you examine the change, and consider period documentation, it`s the exact opposite.

Germany was huge, and it`s key badge/medal producing areas spread across many towns. So it`s perfectly normal to find zinc, iron, plated iron, cupal, trolit(tul), paper etc etc replacing messing in some places before other small towns, where say a maker would not be "in the game" of making 10,000 badges a day, and who could possibly still have made messing badges when others had changed to zinc.

Stu, you need to not only do what i suggested above, but you need to consider the general History as well at that time - in relationship to zinc, or lower class materials, in this instance we can look to the coinage of Germany during that time, with lower denomination coins (1,2,5,10 pfennig) being produced from messing, and then changing to zinc in the middle of 1940. Understanding small (non-militaria) "happenings" like that, also go a long way to understanding the change to zinc after the war.

@pete, well as from yesterday, the book is now a reality, a deal had been done, and i would image that during the first half of 2013 it will be comming to a cinema near you!
 
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Wow that is rearly some amazing work there Jo .By the sounds of it this book is going to knock the spots off all that have been before.
I for one will be glad to learn from it ,please keep us informed for when it is in Print.
Found another nice HJ diomand yesterday,It is already on the list but new in mine.
Best regards Pete UK
 
petesav said:
By the sounds of it this book is going to knock the spots off all that have been before.
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Hi Pete. Cheers, Yes, not maybe, not perhaps, but most certainly!
I envisage WANTED posters going up around the fairs with a mug-shot of me on, with the bottom text, DONT SELL TO HIM, SHOOT HIM (MAX members have clubbed together and collected $1,25.- as a bounty price on his head! A free SA Birdshead dagger is also included as long as the kill is fresh and recognizable!)

A common mistake made by TR collectors of all areas is that they have just been concentrating on THAT item, in some cases we are talking about awards and badges produced only between 1940-1945 or even less time, and so if you ignore everything else, and base opinions just on this short, narrow window into one specific time, you are not seeing the whole picture as it was at that time. This applies to other trivialities like attachments - manufacture, economic and financial influence etc etc...

Obviously i am not going to be posting what has already been covered in the book, so will not reply to lots of future "questions" until the book is out.
 
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