John R

Yes I have. It just sold with an extremely rare cap tally/muetzenband on ebay (attached). John

This is probably a Mayer, but it does not look like the Orth style used by Gordon in Torpedo Los. Is this a varient? John

Did the Zimmerman have the different design, or do we not know, like the Mayer zinc? John

Does an image of the zimmerman U-boat in zinc exist? John

Quite true in that eagles should be facing to the left as you are observing the eagle. In other words, to the eagle's right. All US medals have the eagle facing to its right and if you study the heraldry of the US Presidential Seal, in 1945 somebody figured out the eagle was facing the wrong way--to its left so they switched it to its present form. Actually, that was the original direction, but one President, Hayes, for some unknown reason had the eagle looking to the sinister side, so all President Truman did was to get it back to the correct position. In that case, the sinister claws had arrows (copied from Holland) and the right hand claws had an olive branch so Truman got the eagle to face the olive branch, not the arrows. It was simply a mistake on the part of somebody on a redesign which was corrected. All of this (both the US and Presidential seals) were a copy of the United Low Countries lion: "The bundle of arrows in the eagle's sinister claw has an interesting precedent: the arms adopted by the United Provinces or United Low Countries after their break from the Spanish crown in the 16th century feature a lion holding seven arrows in its paw, for the seven provinces. The United Provinces provided a precedent for the United States, sharing the feature that they earned their independence through a war, but did so as several distinct provinces headed by a representative assembly, and adopted a non-monarchical form of government after independence; these features were unique in European history." I think the KM just knew which way the eagle was supposed to face and designed the badges according to heraldic tradition. Of course, some Herr/LW eagles also go to the same direction (paratrooper), but most do not. I am surprised, now that you pointed it out, and I also did not notice this fact, that all eagles were not facing to their right but, they do not. Very interesting, but I do not think it has much to do with the Herr/LW badges being sinister in intent, they were just designed without heraldic tradition in mind which is very surprising based on historic Germanic eagles. John

L/18 S-boat second pattern. And to make it even more interesting, there are at least 3 examples of different Mayer hinges/setups on their High Seas Fleet Badge.

And destroyer.

As I have posted above, it is interesting that Mayer used different setups on the hinge for their KM badges. Here is the S-boat:

And here is a different setup on the Mayer S-boat:

Note with this example of a Mayer AC badge that the hinge is different than the Mayer U-boat badge hinge. Are there other examples of a maker using different hinges for their badges than Mayer? The MS badge has the same crimped barrel hinge.

OK, they are posted on WAF. I note the hinge is the crimped barrel hinge on the MS badge not the same as the tombak U-boat badge hinge. It is interesting in that I am not sure how many makers used different hinges for their KM badges.

Does anyone have examples of a Mayer marked '26' or 'L/18' Minesweeper/MS badge? In tombak and zinc. Thanks, John

I was looking for websites of dealers that sell reproducton U-boat tradition emblems/badges and have only found two so far. Does anyone have others to add? These are sold as reproductions, not as period pieces for re-enactors. http://www.angelfire.com/ia2/insulators/ http://www.pzg.biz/regalia_kriegsmarine.htm

I fish, I get a tire. You fish, and you snag a story. John

[british and US interrogators generally labelled anyone who refused to give more than the normal "name, rank and number" as an "arrogant Nazi" but even they occasionally attested "to be astonished by the anti-Nazi attitudes of captured U-Boat personnel.] Quite true as reflected in the reports, especially after mid-1943. I also was trying to compliment the seemingly excellent interrogation process employed by the British as applied to these crews and their officers. It is also true that in early reports, the anger is there on the part of the British towards the U-boat officers, and based on shipping losses to that period of time, understandable. If anything, I think the British interrogators must have been carefully selected for this job as I am amazed as it what is contained therein. [i'd take the postwar writings of any former senior military personality with a pinch of salt. No one can doubt that there were committed Nazis within the Kriegsmarine, but the huge difference between the public utterings of the naval leadership (driven in part by the need to be seen as 100% loyal and not ever wishing to revisit the disintegration of discipline and order which came with the sailor?s councils etc after the 1918 mutiny) and their actual actions, paint an entirely different picture.] Again, true and you can't underestimate the effect of the 1918 mutiny on KM thinking during WWII, especially on Donitz. Also, I stand corrected on prior surface experience, however, I thought I read that statistic but can't find it now. It was somewhere. Your data is probably better than mine, and certainly, I do not want to depend on only one reference for this detail. I will keep looking, but as I said, it was in a reference, but as in any study, you certainly should not go on just one. I would also like to clarify that the main reason a man goes to sea in war is for a sense of adventure that sailor life seems to extend to those that have never done it, duty sake, your ship and shipmates, and the Navy. I was referring to the top level decision makers, for the most part, that would have had final approval of a badge design. [i think the fact that the KM got off "lightly" has more to do with the fact that in general it fought a "clean" war, far cleaner than any other part of the Wehrmacht and indeed cleaner than some of the allies.] Again, I would agree, and probably why the US Admirals came to the defense of Donitz at his trial at least in regards to the U-boat war. There was never any post-war accusation, but one, U-852, that any U-boat acted in any way out of the ordinary in comparison with say, US boats, in relation to their conduct during the war. I can assure you this is quite true from my friends that were US submarine Skippers and carrier pilots in the Pacific in WWII. [However, this is straying way off topic and into the realms of politics, which has no place on GMIC. Anyone who wants hard factual data on all aspests of the background of KM personnel, in particular the U-Boats, including social, educational, professional and political should read "Neither Sharks nor Wolves" by Timothy P Mulligan.] Excellent book, but well worth another read and I intend to pull it out and do just that. John

I think recent studies, such as Keith Bird's biography of Raeder and Grier's "Hitler and Donitz and the Baltic Sea", convincingly prove that the ideological relationship between the KM and NS was quite close and much of what was written in the autobiographies of those two Admirals must be taken with a great deal of wariness. Their wartime speeches, trial statements after the war, and other documents prove the opposite of what they were saying much later. Salewski's book "Die Deutsche Seekriegslitung" and in other published works in the 70s are even more damning of the KM (published 1970-1975). I have also studied numerous British interrogation reports of captured U-boat crewmembers. Most, up to 1943 anyway, show extreme loyalty to NS especially by the officers and complete confidence they would win the war. The crews reaction depended on the indoctrination by the Captain for the most part, but after 1943, most enlisted men seemed happy to be prisoners and not at the bottom and were very talkative, especially about the defects of their officers, not seen in the pre-43 reports for the most part. So, to see a British statement "This Captain was one of the most arrogant Nazis we have interrogated" was not unusual in 1940, however, the British were quite expert at getting them to talk by merely the threat of poor living condition for the U-boat crew. No whips and electric leads needed. Something else that is typical of most militaries but navies in particular. They will come together to protect their leaders. Has to do with the loyalty to a Captain, no matter how bad he might be, and it just becomes ingrained with that service. No criticisim of Donitz was typical in postwar German Navy accounts even from U-boat commanders, although they knew something was wrong even if Donitz did not. Nothing is said about his political convictions. Also, both Admirals survived the war, something that did not happen with the top LW and Herr leadership. It was then much easier for surviving Herr generals to complain about Hitler strategies since Hitler was dead, but in the case of the KM, both Admirals were still around and hard to blame Hitler for the U-boat war, Bismarck and Scharnhorst sorties, the wasted end to Tirpitz and Baltic naval campaigns and how they influenced Hitler's ground war decisions in the Baltic states. So there is a lot of protection in the writings post war of KM officers when it comes to Donitz and Raeder and NS in my opinion. I think the badges, as stated above, were strictly based on artistic proportionality and had nothing to do with any feeling within the KM that the symbol itself was to be minimized because they were not political when they really were based on most recent studies. The huge number of U-boat members that came out of the Marine Hitler Youth is another reason for this I think. There was a very good reason that surface sailors and merchant marine sailors were not used in the U-boat arm. Helps not to know what that torpedo is doing to the ship you just attacked. Just look at the uniforms and see how many are wearing a High Seas or Destroyer Badge and a U-boat badge. Not many. There was a reason for Donitz's appointment by Hitler as his replacement afterall. I do not think Hitler took this last decision very lightly and if you study the actions of the KM Naval Police at the end of war, you will see that their brutality, with the complete backing of Donitz, was amazing and in some eyes, worse than the more well known SS units hanging deserters at the end of the war. Donitz hung 3 sailor deserters (who took off on 5 May) on 10 May while he was still "Reich President". Well, the war was over as he well knew and he personally made sure the executions had taken place. He certainly did not dissolve the Nazi Party thru 23 May while President. Therefore, I see no political way of connecting any lack of NS resolve within the KM as much as it would be nice to see, but the documents just do not back this up. Therefore, the badges just ended up looking like they did since they looked better that way. Did not want to make a lecture of this, but I do think the KM gets off lightly compared to the other fighting branches when they really were all in that war together, as would make perfect sense at the time. John

This is an interesting photo courtesy of Ricardo in Brazil posted on WAF a couple days ago. These types of photos make great history I think, and while interservice transfers were common, they must have opened a few eyes in their day. Just another observation since you do not see it often, the diagonal blue stripe on the scarf is very visable in this photo at the knot, just above the white securing bows. I am sure there a numerous images of Herr and LW men with KM decorations also. John

Both are AS and nice badges. John

Great informaton. Something new all the time so the research is not over yet. Is it possible to get a better image of the Beco mark? John

Just a quick review of marked AS badges I have come up with the PAB, IAB, Flak, S-boat, and MS--all the same in reverse setup and marking. That is about all I can add to the research on this maker. John

L/21 F&B badge type also from Roman, clearly not the same badge, but similar.

Another to look at, courtesy of Roman.

I do want to mention that on the thread running at WAF on the AS HSF badge, the feeling is that it is a fake based on the Foerster and Barth design--so a little caution on this one for now I think. Checking other non-KM badges by AS, they all seem to have the ball hinge (like the Flak Badge). It also does look like a Foerster and Barth HSF. Are there any badges by AS that have this kind of reverse setup? Bottom line right now, based on the reverse hardware, still open for discussion. Perhaps there is more evidence out there. John

If anyone has an image of a "4" marked minesweeper badge, please post it. Thanks, John

Heck, you did Philipp a favor to bring folks to his website. John