Talk:Waffenfarbe

Misunderstanding removed

I removed the sentence though the Luftwaffe does make a slight difference between officers and non-commissioned service members with white stripes on the ordonance uniform of officers and yellow stripes on the blue ordonance uniform{{clarifyme|What's an "ordonance uniform"?}} of non-commissioned ranks{{clarifyme|Where do the stripe appear?}}. because it contains a severe misunderstanding. What the author saw was the silver resp. dark-gold cord around the collar of the "blue" uniform which indicates officers resp. NCO's. (Generals: gold.) This is not restricted to the air force but also used in the army. This cord lies inside the waffenfarbe-coloured cord which runs around the shoulder board.

However, it must be said that the waffenfarbe was indeed used as cord around the collar - and on the outer trouser seams - but only for enlisted ranks and these cords were abolished in 1974 when I was a soldier myself. Wschroedter 00:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible revision + split?

Currently this article is rather awkwardly schizophrenic, with text relating to the Bundeswehr, and an 'illustration' section covering pre-45. Perhaps some knowledgeable editor could add the current German system in tabular form, and we could give the WWII stuff its own article?Solicitr (talk) 04:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Solicitr: (a) There are also several Bundeswehr illustrations and the graphics with all those badges are rather official. (b) Do you want a table like for the Wehrmacht? (c) I would not divide this page up because it's rated low importance already. Wschroedter (talk) 23:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Sources

Hello Solicitr, would you please reveal the sources for your recent colour changes?

The unknown no. 3 might be General staff, or what do you think? Wschroedter (talk) 00:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Sure- the unit types for each color came from a very detailed list which appears several places, including at http://www.afrikakorps.org/waffenfarben.htm. The colors themselves- wwell, I did my best to match up to many, many photos of original insignia. www.germanmilitaria.com is perhaps the site with the most examples.

The originals of course aren't identical; and even if we allow for 60-70 years of age, they weren't all that consistent when they were new, either, thanks to variable dye lots and different wool and rayon fabrics. I've tried to give an "average".

No, I don't believe the 'unknown' is General Staff. The crimson backing-color would be right, but Offiziere i. G. wore a peculiar old-fashioned "serrated" form of Litzen, and they were silver-white, not gold. I thought it might be a veterinary general- but, no, they wore generals' arabesques on crimson backing. I can't find *anybody* who wore gold-embroidered Litzen (save the very different pattern of senior Heeresbeamten). Solicitr (talk) 05:07, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Just found out that according to de:Kragenspiegel#Wehrmacht the 'unknown' is "Officers in the OKW". This seems appropriate. The Litzen are indeed meant to be the peculiar ones, if you compare the hatching to the others, it goes in the other direction; it is a poor sketch, though. Wschroedter (talk) 02:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

That's what wiki:de says, but I don't believe them. Kolbenstickerei were still silver, not gold: http://www.germanmilitaria.com/Heer/photos/H008461.html. Nobody but generals got to wear gold in the Wehrmacht. As for the last one in the second group- I am going by the spiegel, not the backing. Although the greens are always hairy, to me they look like Jaeger green, not the PzGr wiesengruen of the one beside it. But it's really a judgment call. Solicitr (talk) 16:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I admit the colour of the latter is not referred to in the de:Kragenspiegel#Wehrmacht article, only the fact that it is not "all-over" but reduced to the "center part of the Litzen".

However, the link you are giving is no proof against the "unknown" meaning "OKW". The link shows a (extremely fine) Genaral Staff uniform without any doubt but this doesn't exclude the OKW - a command which maybe deemed itself "better" than the other Oberkommandos (arrogant of sorts) - to show off (expr.?) extraordinary Kragenspiegel. I'll try to find the Heer volume of Schlicht/Angolia in our command library (I own the Luftwaffe vol. only) and look if OKW is mentioned.

You know, I wonder if the source of that image is the old US War Department handbook? It contains several errors, having been prepared in 1943. For example, though it isn't worth mentioning in the article, the dress arty NCO image is wrong: the Unteroffizier-Tresse should run along the top of the collar on a Waffenrock. Solicitr (talk) 16:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Also I'll have to verify if there were colours for chaplains in the Luftwaffe - de:Waffenfarbe doesn't mention them. (Have there been chaplains at all in that most nazistic branch of all?)

You're right. *German* LW and Waffen-SS units had no chaplains. The Luftwaffe borrowed Heer chaplains; the SS discouraged religion. On the other hand "ethnic" units did (incl. imams in Muslim SS units). It appears however that even the few non-German Luftwaffe chaplains (Eastern Orthodox or Croatian Catholic) did not wear purple, but a cross insignia on black collar patches. Solicitr (talk) 16:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

New question: The Karten- und Vermessungstruppen (Map and Military Survey Cartographers) are attributed "white" in the present article. Do you know a source for this? I didn't find anything yet. In the Bundeswehr the former topographic troops were red like artillery. I wonder why this should have been different in the Wehrmacht. I'll check it also in Schlicht/Angolia. Wschroedter (talk) 15:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Unit or specialty related?

Is the Waffenfarbe assigned by unit or by specialty? I'm not real clear on what color a logistics-branch guy would wear while assigned to a panzer unit, forex.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Unit, usually the regiment or battalion. Division HQ staff would wear the branch color of the division's type; corps and higher HQ staff would wear white by default, except in a Panzerkorps or Panzergruppe. In some cases a company might have had its own color, for instance the armored-car companies of certain recon battalions had originally been transferred from the cavalry and kept their gold piping. It wasn't like the US Army system, where an individual soldier belongs to his MOS branch wherever he goes. The principal reason the Heer in 1938 adopted a 'generic' collar patch without Waffenfarbe for enlisted field uniforms was the wastage and logistical burden (and company tailors' time!) of changing insignia every time a man transferred units. Your "logistics-branch guy" would only be a logistics-branch guy if he served in a transport unit.

The exception to this was certain "staff corps" officers, like chaplains and doctors, who were considered attached to rather than part of whatever unit they were serving with: so also officers of the General Staff, a couple of whom could be found in every division headquarters (one of them being in fact the divisional logistics officer, the Ib). This was also the case with members of the Army administrative services, Heeresbeamten, "civilians-in-uniform" who handled much of the paper-shuffling. This visible distinction was made at least in part to emphasize the fact that these officers (except General Staff) did not have command authority outside their specialties. For instance, a doctor of general officer rank was called a Generalarzt (Surgeon-general) and wore his arabesques on blue backing, not red.

Here is the Grossdeutschland Division's 1943 TOE, with unit Waffenfarben included: http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/divisionoob1943.htm (I should point out that GD, uniquely, did not adopt green Waffenfarbe when it was redesignated a Panzergrenadier formation. A conventional PG-div would have used meadow-green piping for its infantry/grenadier regiments and HQ staff.) Solicitr (talk) 01:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Nat. People's Army waffenfarben

Hi Solicitr ;-), from which year have the Nat. People's Army's waffenfarben been white (red for generals) only? What is your source? - I'll add the colours as of 1985. Wschroedter (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I found a source and will edit the paragraph accordingly, but not tonite (01:07AM now). Wschroedter (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2010 (UTC)