BACKGROUND: The wearing of specific, identifying, trade or speciality badges was an old tradition in the German army and was adopted by the SS to distinguish personnel who had successful completed the appropriate course and had achieved proficiency at a particular trade, specialty or function. The Waffen-SS instituted a series of six, former service identification sleeve badges that followed the same basic format of the trade, specialty and assignment sleeves badges. These former service identification sleeve badges were designed to indicate the wearer had served in an approved political, or para-military organization before entering the Waffen-SS. This example was designed for wear by former Hitler Jugend, (Hitler Youth) members. Of Note: In David Littlejohn’s book "The Hitler Youth", page 288, the author speculates these diamonds may have been worn by SS liaison personnel with the Reichsjugendführer, (National Youth Leader), or possibly by SS instructors of the HJ-Streifendienst, (Patrol service), which was under the auspices of the SS. Also Of Note: The RZM, Reichzeugmeisterei, (National Equipment Quartermaster), was official founded in June 1934 in Munich by the NSDAP as a Reich Hauptamt, (State Central Office), and was based on the earlier SA Quartermaster’s Department. The functions of the RZM were not only to procure and distribute items to Party formations, but also to approve chosen designs and to act as a quality control supervisor to ensure items manufactured for the Party met required specification and were standardized. Starting in late 1934 items manufactured for the SS came under the quality control of the RZM and were marked with a RZM/SS approval/acceptance tags. In 1943 the Waffen-SS assumed full control over their uniform item production and no longer fell under the authority of the RZM.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Black wool diamond base with a machine embroidered HJ diamond in silvery/white and black threads with the black replacing the red of the original HJ diamonds. The HJ insignia is in the form of a vertical diamond with black top and bottom quarters and silvery/white side quarters with a central, black, canted, swastika superimposed on a silvery/white diamond background field.