Original World War Two German Waffen SS Enlisted Man or Non-Commissioned Officer’s (EM/NCO) Belt Buckle.
Steel construction belt buckle featuring a smooth outer field with a high relief, embossed, central, motif pattern consisting of an SS style national eagle with out-stretched wings, clutching a wreathed, static, swastika in it’s talons. The swastika and wreath are in turn encompassed by a circular, simulated, twisted, rope border with the Gothic script motto, "Meine Ehre heißt Treue!", (My Honor is Loyalty!). The script is situated on a subtly textured, background field and is encircled by the inner and outer simulated, twisted, rope borders. Heavily patinated with lots of character!
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 reverse of the buckle is well marked with the embossed "RZM" logo, and "SS" runes flanking the manufacturer’s contract code numeral and date, "155/40” indicating manufacture by F. W. Assmann & Söhne of Lüdenscheid in 1940. The RZM logo has dual circular borders while and SS runes have a single circular border. 1940 was the first year that SS EM/NCO belt buckles were produced in steel, with construction in prior years being from nickel and then aluminum and eventually a few were even made in zinc. Note how the maker mark is at the left side reverse, the later type had the maker at the right reverse under the prong bar assembly. This is scarcer than the later type making it one of the harder examples to find.
The Allgemeine-SS, (General-SS), was originally formed in May 1923 under the auspices of the SA, Sturm Abteilung, (Storm/Assault Detachment), as the Stosstrupp Adolf Hitler (Shock Troops), and was redesignated Schutz Staffel, (Protection Squad), in April 1925 with the official acceptance of the name verified on the second anniversary of the failed Munich "Beer-Hall" Putsch on November 9TH 1925. As a subordinate unit to the SA, early SS personnel wore the standard SA style box belt buckle. It is believed that Adolf Hitler personally designed a new pattern box belt buckle specifically for wear by SS EM/NCO personnel with the manufacturing patent being originally granted to the Overhoff & Cie. firm in Lüdenscheid. This new style buckle was adopted for wear by EM/NCO personnel in late 1931 or early 1932. Generally the early buckles were produced in solid nickel/silver until sometime in 1936 when aluminum alloys replaced the nickel/silver versions. In 1940 the EM/NCO’s belt buckles began to be manufactured in steel replacing the aluminum alloy buckles. Of Note: The RZM, Reichzeugmeisterei, (National Equipment Quartermaster), was officially 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 as a result were to be marked with the RZM/SS approval/acceptance mark. In 1943 the Waffen-SS, (Armed-SS), assumed full control over their uniform item production and no longer fell under the authority of the RZM.
