CurtD

These were not RZM marked.

Larger pictures would help. But, this is not an SS RZM armband.

I saved the most interesting for last, the Deutsches Rotes Kreuz (German Red Cross) armband with the SS-BW marking on it. This piece is a little bigger than the Deutsche Wehrmacht armband, and has a very faint glow under blacklight, but its not really a glow, just not as dark as most TR cloth. I have seen an example of a fake of this and it had the red Cross symbol with the swaztika printed on the armband, not sewn. I have read that the SS-BW stamp means it was made (if an original) in a concentration camp for the SS Berkeweiter? labour organization, that produced clothing and other items towards the end of the war. I have heard some call this a fantasy piece, but it seems not enough info is out there to make a sure judgement. I hope someone can shed some light on the subject as I am very interested in finding out the answers to this unique piece.

Thanks,

Pat

That book is a good book, but it is also over 20 years old and is very general in nature. The author, Robin Lumsden, is a member of this forum. I have that book and about 12 others devoted to SS cloth.

For some reason, it looks like there are no SS cloth collectors reading this forum. You might want to contact him (his ID = "Robin Lumsden") and point him to this thread and get his opinion. I see he has posted in the SS awards forum a few rows down.

The world of SS cloth is the biggest minefield there is. You need to get at least 12 books and study for several years. Then you should assume everything is fake until proven genuine. Otherwise, you are going to be out a lot of money.

This looks like something made for a movie or theater. There are a lot better fakes on the market right now.

I did some research on the armband. It is not SS but a political armband. These armbands were later made of linen and were printed onto the linen. The stamp is legit, I darken the picture in order for the stamp to show more clearly. And I did a burn test on a piece of the thread and it passed as far as not being made of a polyester.

How did you determine this is a politcal armband? The black stripes were reserved for the SS. And this dosn't look like any SS armband I have ever seen.

I don't believe the SS ever used printed armbands like this one.