I came across what I think is a German dog tag today at a yard sale. One side is marked
Waffen SS A
the other side is marked
SS-Flak.E.Rgt
6806
Is this a dog tag or something else? Any way of dating or tracing it?
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I came across what I think is a German dog tag today at a yard sale. One side is marked
Waffen SS A
the other side is marked
SS-Flak.E.Rgt
6806
Is this a dog tag or something else? Any way of dating or tracing it?
Here are a couple of photos of it.
I know bugger all about WWII German stuff except for the very basics. But, I remember reading somewhere, sometime, that the Germans didn't list personal details on their ID tags as did/do Commonwealth and American forces. What I read was that the tag was unit particular and that the number, 6806 in this case, referred to whatever soldier was listed at that number on the unit (SS Flak-E Regiment in this case) roster. The tag is a one piece/two piece arrangement in that it is one piece meant to be broken in half at the middle in the event the soldier is killed or dies. The part with the two holes stays on the body, while the part with one hole goes to graves registration. A little surprising is that Canada and Israel use as similar ID tag now.
jbm,
On death one half would be broken off along the dotted line for official records and the other left with the body for ID purposes his number was 6806 the tags tell the clear unit ID anyway as a Flak unit;)
Cool, thanks for the info, are there any records that would show where that regiment was and when?
Sadly, he wasn't in a Infantry Regiment soldier, however, Flak units were mostly deployed around key buildings and sensitive sites like dams and the Fuhrers haunts and they were quite small in size, and partially the reason there isn't too much info on the tags.
For you information SS-Flak E stands for Ersatz, and is basically a standby or replacement unit.
This particular unit manned various anti aircraft batteries surrounding all the dams attacked by 617 Squadron RAF under the command of Guy Gibson.
The Flak Ersatz Regiment was commanded by a feared General Major der Waffen SS one Karl BURK during that period of the dam attacks, needless to say he got some crap jobs after that and played out the war and was not on Hitlers Christmas card list!!:lol: