SS-Feldgendarmerie woven cuff title

SS-Feldgendarmerie woven cuff title, beautifully manufactured in the early 1980’s, very limited supply.

The SS-Feldgendarmerie wore the same uniform and gorget as their Army counterparts but had an addition cuff title indicating they were military police. Generally they conducted the same policing role, such as controlling rear areas but they also conducted counter-insurgency and extermination operations with Einsatzgruppen against Jews, partisans and those deemed to be “enemies of the Reich”. These SS units had a severe reputation for being strict enforcers of military law. Nicknamed Kopf Jäger (Head Hunters), they also tracked down and punished those deemed to be deserters. From 1944 on wards, former members of the Ordnungspolizei serving with the Waffen-SS, were also given military police powers and duties. These special SS-Feldgendarmerie were denoted by a diamond polizei-eagle insignia worn on the lower sleeve.

In January 1944 as the Red Army began to advance on the Eastern Front, the power of the Feldgendarmerie was superseded by the creation of the Feldjägerkorps. Answering only to the German High Command (OKW), its three regiments were founded to maintain discipline and military cohesion in all branches of the Wehrmacht (including the Feldgendarmerie). Feldjägers were recruited from decorated, battle-hardened officers and NCOs. They had the military authority of the OKW to arrest and execute officers and soldiers from either the Wehrmacht or the SS for desertion, defeatism and other duty violations. Every unit of the Feldjäger had command of a “Fliegendes Standgericht” (flying drumhead trial/flying court martial), which comprised three judges.

Despite the surrender of all German forces in May 1945, some Feldgendarmerie and Feldjägerkorps units in the western zones of occupied Germany were allowed to keep their weapons by the Allies because of the number of POWs that required guarding and processing. For example, the British VIII Corps based in Schleswig-Holstein used an entire regiment of volunteers from the Feldgendarmerie to maintain discipline at its demobilization center at Meldorf. Re-activated military police, who received extra rations as pay, were identified by an armband stating Wehrmachtordnungstruppe (Armed Forces Order Troop). In June 1946, more than 12 months after the official end of World War II, the Feldgendarmerie became the last German units to surrender their arms.