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. Originally the SS had no insignia to distinguish qualified marksmen and in late 1936 they decided to use the old army pattern of sleeve braids as first introduced in January 1928. It is interesting to note that at the time of this decision the army had already abandoned the sleeve braids in favour of the marksman’s lanyard. In November 1937 the SS introduced a series of four marksman’s sleeve diamonds of their own design for award to qualified marksmen. The marksman’s sleeve diamonds consisted of the Master Shooters class, the Sharpshooters class, the Marksmen’s 1ST class and the Marksmen’s 2ND class with different requirements for each. Of Note: The SS marksmen’s sleeve diamonds were utilized by all branches of the SS and were worn on the lower left sleeve of the uniform. This example is the Marksmen’s 1ST class insignia and was the third highest of the four marksman’s diamonds. 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: Vertical, black wool diamond base featuring a hand embroidered "target" consisting of three, concentric, circular rings positioned above dual, crossed, oak-leaf sprigs all in bright, silver/aluminum wire threads. Wool is worn from both the upper and bottom tips. The insignia is mounted on a tan buckram backing.