Paul R

Air Organizations of the Third Reich is a nice early reference(1972). It covers insignia, basic waffenfarbe system, as well as touching on the various auxillary units. A nice starter book. It has a lot of information without seeming too overbearing. A nice secondary reference book!

Here is the vol 2 I mentioned in the last post

The purpose of this thread is to be a directory of the reference books that pertain to collecting Luftwaffe Uniforms, Insignia, Field Gear, Flags, and etc. If anyone has any books that are not pictured here, please post them here! First I will start with Vol 1 of the Angolia series. From all of the books that I have, these are among the most commonly used. These books are rich in photographs, most of which are in black in white. The down sides of these books are the costs and availablity. They are very difficult to find(especially vol 2) and in most cases, very expensive when found.

Thanks Kevin!

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Between you and Gary B there will not be any more left within a year!! Nice finds!

Hi Kevin, This is the only place that I have photo posting privleges.

Hi Ed, No problem at all. Thank you for posting yet another valuable resource!

This catalog contains pricing for medals, badges, pins, and insignia. Lots of black and white photos. Published for the 1998/99 time period. That is all that I have. Again, please post scans of your books!!!

A very nice DDR(1977) published book on medals and order. All illustrations are in color! One of the best medals and orders books I have seen despite the age of the book.

I would love to find the first volume for this series...(it deals with the police)

This is an earlier edition of the above.

I am attempting to build a data base of the DDR collecting references out there! I will start with mine. Please post any different references you may have.

Wow... that name draws out a lot of memories! I will have to search him out! It is good to see that he is still around! Thanks Paul

Thanks! I do have band II of Klaus Walther's Uniformeffekten Spezialkatalog. I have not been able to find the band I after several years of looking! I will keep an eye out for the other book you mentioned! Thanks for the info Paul

Despite all of my looking, this is the only Civil Defence tunic I have been able to obtain. I remember missing one on Ebay that was for an Oberst several years ago. I have been kicking myself every since. It was a beautiful Army Officer's tunic with the cuff title, Officer's Collar Tabs, and boards. As you will notice, this summer tunic has a cuff title with equal wear to that on the tunic. The EM tab have the purple waffenfarbe. The boards are a bit strange, yet they are purple. The boards I am used to seeing are like the typical army boards, but with a purple waffenfarbe. Maybe this is some auxillary for the civil defense? Lets see your Civil Defense uniform related items!

I have had this tunic now for a few years. I have not an idea what this tunic is... I am under the impression that it is some police auxillary. I have not seen this color of material before!

I did not know that there was a cuff title as well!!! Nice!!!

Those are nice!!! I do have a couple of TraPo Tunics with the Schutzpolizei patches(the pics are too blurry to post!). How difficult were the Abschnitzbevollmachtiger patches to find? I would love to find some tunics with this particular patch. Thank you again for your help and clarification. Also, thanks to everyone who helped to make this a very informative thread(to me anyway). I do have a lot of books referencing the military aspect of the DDR, yet I have yet to find the same books for the Police side of the house. I will start a new thread with another mystery tunic. Regards Paul

Thank you for the clarification Ehrentitle. I now understand completly! So the factory security personnel were pulled from the larger population of VoPo. They were a completely independant force than the Kampfgruppen(who were the trained civilian workers themselves). I am still confused about the role of the Abschnitzbevollmachtiger. What are some special areas where a special patch would be worn to designate a "authority for"?

Gerd, The photos in that website spoke 1000 words. It seems that these men were more than mere gate guards, who checked papers. The photos indicated that they were in charge of all aspects of factory protection/security, to include artillary, anti air defenses, and etc! Very impressive! I emailed the webmaster to request permission to use some of his photos here! Very nice! Paul

That was my guess with the Bereitshaftspolizei (BePo), as I could not imagine what else they could be used for... extra trained man power. Where these men active duty or were they held on a Reserve status? Gerd, Thank you for that website. I will check it out now. ehrentitle, Thank you for posting that chart! It was actually nice to see that patch references somewhere. Looking at the chart brings another question... What was the "Abschnittsbevollmachtigher"? I have never before seen that patch either. What was this organization's role?

You have been a huge help! Thank you! If anyone else has any more information on the Factory Security Service, I look forward to learning more! Regards Paul

Thanks Gerd! Have you seen a lot of these? I am suprised that they would use the uniform of Schutzpolizei. Did the Betriebsschutz have the same law enforcement abilities as the Schutzpolizei? I would have figured that the security guards would have worn a different uniform to prevent confusion.

I just want to share with you, my medical Major's tunic. Notice that it has the dark green waffenfarbe for the Rear Services. I have seen medical officer insignia placed through various waffenfarbed boards. This leads me to believe that assigned medical officers assumed the waffenfarbe of the unit they were attached to. Please do post yours!!! Regards Paul