Talk:Waffenfarbe

Misunderstanding removed
I removed the sentence though the Luftwaffe does make a slight difference between officers and non-commissioned service members with white stripes on the ordonance uniform of officers and yellow stripes on the blue ordonance uniform of non-commissioned ranks  . because it contains a severe misunderstanding. What the author saw was the silver resp. dark-gold cord around the collar of the "blue" uniform which indicates officers resp. NCO's. (Generals: gold.) This is not restricted to the air force but also used in the army. This cord lies inside the waffenfarbe-coloured cord which runs around the shoulder board.

However, it must be said that the waffenfarbe was indeed used as cord around the collar - and on the outer trouser seams - but only for enlisted ranks and these cords were abolished in 1974 when I was a soldier myself. Wschroedter 00:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Possible revision + split?
Currently this article is rather awkwardly schizophrenic, with text relating to the Bundeswehr, and an 'illustration' section covering pre-45. Perhaps some knowledgeable editor could add the current German system in tabular form, and we could give the WWII stuff its own article?Solicitr (talk) 04:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Hello Solicitr: (a) There are also several Bundeswehr illustrations and the graphics with all those badges are rather official. (b) Do you want a table like for the Wehrmacht? (c) I would not divide this page up because it's rated low importance already. Wschroedter (talk) 23:14, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Unit or specialty related?
Is the Waffenfarbe assigned by unit or by specialty? I'm not real clear on what color a logistics-branch guy would wear while assigned to a panzer unit, forex.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Unit, usually the regiment or battalion. Division HQ staff would wear the branch color of the division's type; corps and higher HQ staff would wear white by default, except in a Panzerkorps or Panzergruppe. In some cases a company might have had its own color, for instance the armored-car companies of certain recon battalions had originally been transferred from the cavalry and kept their gold piping. It wasn't like the US Army system, where an individual soldier belongs to his MOS branch wherever he goes. The principal reason the Heer in 1938 adopted a 'generic' collar patch without Waffenfarbe for enlisted field uniforms was the wastage and logistical burden (and company tailors' time!) of changing insignia every time a man transferred units. Your "logistics-branch guy" would only be a logistics-branch guy if he served in a transport unit.


 * The exception to this was certain "staff corps" officers, like chaplains and doctors, who were considered attached to rather than part of whatever unit they were serving with: so also officers of the General Staff, a couple of whom could be found in every division headquarters (one of them being in fact the divisional logistics officer, the Ib). This was also the case with members of the Army administrative services, Heeresbeamten, "civilians-in-uniform" who handled much of the paper-shuffling. This visible distinction was made at least in part to emphasize the fact that these officers (except General Staff) did not have command authority outside their specialties. For instance, a doctor of general officer rank was called a Generalarzt (Surgeon-general) and wore his arabesques on blue backing, not red.


 * Here is the Grossdeutschland Division's 1943 TOE, with unit Waffenfarben included: http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/divisionoob1943.htm (I should point out that GD, uniquely, did not adopt green Waffenfarbe when it was redesignated a Panzergrenadier formation. A conventional PG-div would have used meadow-green piping for its infantry/grenadier regiments and HQ staff.) Solicitr (talk) 01:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Nat. People's Army waffenfarben
Hi Solicitr ;-), from which year have the Nat. People's Army's waffenfarben been white (red for generals) only? What is your source? - I'll add the colours as of 1985. Wschroedter (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I found a source and will edit the paragraph accordingly, but not tonite (01:07AM now). Wschroedter (talk) 23:08, 5 April 2010 (UTC)