BACKGROUND: On May 27TH 1942 SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA, Reichssicherungshauptamt, (Central Security Department), and Reichs Protector of Bohemia and Moravia was the victim of an assassination attempt in Prague and died a week later as a result. In early June 1942 personnel of the SS-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 6, of the 6.SS-Gebirgs-Division "Nord", were bestowed a commemorative honor cufftitle, "Reinhard Heydrich", in remembrance. Of Note: The SS-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 6. was redesignated SS-Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 11 in October 1943 and personnel continued the right to wear the cufftitle. Originally the cufftitles for EM/NCO’s were manufactured in the RZM pattern with machine embroidered script until the machine woven "BeVo" pattern was introduced in 1943. Of Note: The RZM, Reichzeugmeisterei, (National Equipment Quartermaster), was official founded in June 1934 in Munich by the NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, (National Socialist German Worker’s Party), 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 by a cloth RZM/SS approval tag. The dimensions and design of these cloth tags was altered in 1935 and this second pattern tag remained in use until early 1938, when it was replaced by a paper tag. 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: Roughly, 32mm tall, 49cm long, full length, 1943 pattern, BeVo, machine woven, black rayon construction cufftitle with machine woven Latin script, "Reinhard Heydrich" in silvery/grey cotton threads. The cufftitle is bordered at both the top and bottom edges with interwoven, vertically stitched, silvery/grey threads. The full length cufftitle has the typical "salt & pepper" pattern reverse with folded over machine stitched ends. One of the folded over ends has the machine woven, manufacturer’s trade name, "Bevo-Wuppertal", also in silvery/grey threads indicating manufacture by Bandfabrik Ewald Vorsteher in Wuppertal.