Description
Gendarmerie Police Sleeve badge
The Gendarmerie Police Sleeve badge depicts an oval oak leaf wreath with embroidered orange thread, with an outstretched eagle in the center clutching a swastika on a field green wool base.
Shortly after Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, (National Socialist German Worker’s Party), ascended to the leadership of Germany, the police, as with almost all civic organizations, incorporated the new style national eagle and swastika on their insignia. On June 17TH 1936, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler was appointed to the newly created position of Chef der Deutschen Polizei im Reichsministerium des Innern, (Chief of the German Police in the National Ministry of the Interior), effectively giving him full control of all police agencies within Germany.
As a result of this appointment and the restructuring of all the separate German state police into a single national police force, new regulations were instituted to bring about uniformity in dress for all police through-out the country. One of the new uniform regulations was the introduction of an identifying sleeve insignia. The police were divided into eight assorted branches of service and during the restructuring, the different police agencies were assigned specific identifying “truppenfarbe” (Troop {Branch of Service} Colors). NCO ranks of Unterwachtmeister to Hauptwachtmeister, (equivalent to the army ranks of Unteroffizier & Oberfeldwebel, respectively), wore the sleeve insignia in the appropriate branch of service color while Officer’s ranks from Polizei Meister to Oberst wore the insignia in bright silver and the ranks of Generalmajor to Generaloberst wore gilt insignia.
Originally the police sleeve eagles worn by NCO’s included the name of the location where they were stationed but regulations of November 10TH 1941 abolished the name for all but the Freiwillingen Feuerwehren, (Volunteer Fire Brigades), and the Pflichtfeuerwehren, (Compulsory Fire Brigades), personnel. Of Note: The German Police had no enlisted ranks with the lowest rank being an Unterwachtmeister which was equivalent to the German army rank of Unteroffizier.
