BACKGROUND: 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 two new style belt buckles on June 25TH 1936 with a round buckle for Officer’s ranks and a box buckle for NCO’s. 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. Also Of Note: This style of buckle was utilized for the duration of the war.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Standardized, 1936 pattern, silver washed, stamped steel construction, police NCO’s, box belt buckle. The buckle features a pebbled base field with a central, circular, embossed, motif. The high relief, central, circular motif features a slightly textured background field with an embossed canted swastika, encompassed by a slightly textured circular field with an embossed, open topped oak-leaf wreath to the bottom and embossed Gothic script motto to the top, "Gott mit uns", (God with us). The reverse of the buckle is a mirror image of the obverse and the brazed buckle catch, prong bar and prongs are all intact. The buckle has no visible manufacturers marks. Nice untouched example.