Kriegsmarine U-boat badges manufactured

[John R]

When you try to estimate the total number of U-boat badges made during the war, it seems to me that this number should be easier to quantify than any other branch of the service. We know there were 40,000 or so men who could have earned the badge, 28,000 killed, 8,000 captured. Since U-boat manning, and therefore badge requirements, was limited to the number of boats in the annual construction plan, badge production could have been fairly accurate. In the case of the Army, I can see where huge numbers of wound badges, other army badges might be made as the war went on since they kept adding men to the army, but not adding men to the submarine branch due to the obvious boat and training restrictions.

Could we estimate that 50,000 badges were made, 40,000 awarded, 20,000 survived the war in total, worn and unworn? I do not know, just thinking about it a bit. If 20,000 survived the war, how many exist today, 12,000-15,000 maybe. Myabe less. Again, I am just trying to see if we can make an accurate guess.

This leads to the question maybe best answered by our own observation, what would be the order of scarcity for badges based on what we have seen over the last 10 years, maybe for the top ten. I do not think SB would make that list for example.

Thoughts or knowledge about this appreciated. John

[Gordon Williamson]

John,

Thats a very tricky one because the numbers of awards made rarely correlate with the number of examples produced. It was common for soldiers to have several examples of some of their badges. I know of some U-Boat men who had 4 or 5 examples of the badge, others only one. Add in any which were manufactured but still in storage, unissued, or in retail outlets unsold, and the numbers could be just about anywhere.

U-Boat men who went down with their boats could easily have left several examples of the badge behind at home. Not every U-Boat man survived the two war cruises required to get the badge and not every one who was KIA had the award sent posthumously to their family. Some did, some didn't.

Nice thought, but an almost impossible challenge.

[John R]

Well, it was thought.

We have been over the ground of which U-boat badge is nicest looking in the eyes of collectors, I was also wondering if we can tell at this point which badges are the least common, regardless of artistic quality. John