BACKGROUND: The Guard Regiment Berlin, was given Infantry regiment status and renamed Großdeutschland Infantry Regiment, on June 12TH 1939. Special uniforms and insignia were introduced on June 20TH 1939 including the distinctive cufftitle and shoulder board/strap cyphers. Originally introduced for wear by all ranks, the Großdeutschland cufftitle was produced in at least four variant patterns during the war with minor modifications. This example is an early third pattern cufftitle as introduced on October 7TH 1940. On its introduction the third pattern cufftitle had the script hand embroidered in silver/aluminum wire threads. In mid-1944 this was altered to machine embroidered script in silver/grey threads. The fourth and final pattern cufftitle was introduced in late 1944 and altered the script from the Sütterlin style to the Copperplate style script. Of Note: Although the earlier pattern cufftitles with the hand embroidered script are often referred to as Officer’s types there was no differentiation between the Officer and EM/NCO’s cufftitles.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Nice quality, black doeskin wool construction cufftitle with hand embroidered Sütterlin style script, "Großdeutschland", in bright, silver/aluminum threads. The cufftitle is bordered at both the top and bottom edges in a bright silver/aluminum Russian braid. The reverse of the cufftitle is the typical opened back type with a handstitched horizontal seam to the center. Nice!