Types of German insignias and sewing

Standard insignia for privates and junior officers were made by machine. A sequence of eagles was embroidered on a long ribbon, from which one eagle was then cut off. The same with buttonholes, they were woven in bobbins, and before sewing on, the tailor cut them off, folded them in the necessary way and sewed them on. There were also patches embroidered by hand and / or on a ready-made molded base. These patches were more expensive to produce and were intended for officers or for retail sale to soldiers.

 

White SS eagles on the canvas and the same eagle cut out of the canvas and sewn onto the camouflage jumpsuit of the SS paratrooper (rare items, originals). (4, 1)

 

Ribbon of SS skulls (copy). Ribbon buttonholes of the Wehrmacht (copy).

Before the war, it was the norm to sew insignia onto a finished jacket. With the outbreak of war, it was necessary to optimize production - and insignia began to be sewn on during the production of the jacket. And at first they did it using a sewing machine in part: one or two straight seams were sewn on a machine, the rest was sewn by hand. Then the eagle and buttonholes were sewn with a zigzag seam around the patch, or less often with a straight line.

Eagle and collar tab (produced after the beginning of war), sewn zigzag. The eagle is sewn by the 1 mm "margin". (3)

The eagle sewn on before sewing the jacket details (the bottom part goes under the pocket). The collar tab sewn with a linear stitch, the left (actually lower) seam on the collar tab is hidden. (3)

There were several types of breast eagles of the Wehrmacht and several types of collar tabs. Various buttonholes and eagles were generated by attempts to decorate / simplify / disguise the uniform. These types of insignia are now distinguished by the year of their creation, for example M36 or M40, but in Germany during the war there was no such terminology. Moreover, there were no hard and fast rules tying a specific type of insignia to a specific model of a field jacket. Of course, on the black uniforms of the tankers, the eagles were on a black background, and on the field gray, on a green one, but nothing more.

The technology for making patches varied depending on the circulation. Higher officers wore hand-embroidered insignia (field officers often stamped out of metal), while privates and non-commissioned officers received mass-produced insignia. The Wehrmacht usually wore woven patches (the so-called BeVo style among the Germans: a method invented back in 1804 by the French engineer Joseph Marie Jacquard). In SS, both BeVo and embroidery on a piece of dense fabric (which is rougher and more embossed than BeVo) were used. In the Luftwaffe, with rare exceptions, all insignia were embroidery.

In the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, there was a certain set of designs that were transferred to various manufacturers for production. Therefore, the design of many Wehrmacht insignia was unchangeable, whether at the beginning or end of the War. Only manufacturers of modern copies do not always carefully approach their work and produced a lot of unprecedented samples... There were more designs in the SS, since this organization was not initially military, but political, it was easier to treat the quality of stripes.

For example, the camouflage cap of the SS troops from December 1, 1942, on the orders of the Reichsführer SS, carried symbols - an eagle and a skull. Stripes were sewn immediately in the process of making a cap, on the autumn side of the red color, on the spring - green. It was in the second half of the war, little care was taken about beauty (the caps itselves were already made of scraps of material from blouses and raincoats), the stripes were sewn on a machine in rough squares (see photo), had an ugly design and disgusting quality. Soon the order was canceled, and the rest of the caps went to the troops without stripes. And the SS soldiers sewed on an eagle and / or a skull or attached a metal skull to a cap at will.

Another thing is that every reenactor wants to get the “most beautiful” insignia!

The insignia on the SS camouflage cap is sewn roughly, not along the contour.

On the other side, the machine line of "spring" symbols is superimposed on the line of "autumn" symbols (original) (1)

Eagle of the Luftwaffe, embroidered with silk thread on a piece of gray-blue cloth. Eagle of the Wehrmacht cut off from the ribbon, silver thread (originals). (4)

Sewing on insignia

To help the reenactor, there are three sewing methods:

1) Manually. You can tear off the lining while sewing or you can grab it with stitches. Cut off the excess from the patch, leaving 5-10 mm around the useful (what will remain visible) part of the insignia. If cut flush, your insignia will unravel.
Bend the edges of the insignia under it (flush) and press with a warm iron. You can trim the base a little at the corners. The patch should look like it's already been sewn on. Do not use a hot iron, almost all copies are made of synthetic materials and may melt during such processing.
Attach the insignia to the jacket and secure with pins, then baste with white thread. You need to try on a jacket with the insignia attached to it and make sure that the insignia is sewn on evenly. It will not be possible to change its position or align the bends later.
Sew on the final stitch: sew the patch around the entire contour with tiny stitches. After that, the insignia can be soaked with water and ironed again with a warm iron so that the water evaporates - the insignia will fall like a glove.

2) Semi-machine way. The insignia should be cut off as in paragraph 1 and applied to the place of sewing. Chalk or soap marks the beginning and end of the machine line. After that, the insignia is attached with the reverse side, folded around the machine seam and then sewn by hand. Thus, the machine seam is invisible.

3) Machine way. The insignia should be cut off as in paragraph 1. Then the edges are folded, but not flush, but with a tolerance of 1-2 mm. For these millimeters, the insignia  will be sewn with a zigzag seam so that the seam wold not cover the useful part of the  insignia. However, on the original samples, the seam sometimes still overlapped the image.
You can sew with a longitudinal stitch, but this method was used less often than a zigzag seam.

Our online store has a wide range of insignia and collar tabs for reenactors. Choose and buy your "most beautiful" insignia. And if you want your insignia to be sewn by an experienced hand, then you can order insignia sewing service.

Sources:

1) Michael D. Beaver with J. F. Borsarello, "Camouflage uniforms of the Waffen SS";

2) Ricardo R. Cardona & Antonio G. Sanchez, "Deutsche Heeresuniformen und Ausrüstung, 1933-1945";

3) Laurent Huart & Jean-Philippe Borg, "Feldbluse. The german sodier's field tunic, 1933-45".

4) Site-shop "LST military collectibles".

Author: Anton Volchkov

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