BACKGROUND: The Dutch, NSB, Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, (National Socialist Movement), founded on December 13^TH 1931 by Anton Mussert, was a nationalistic, Dutch, fascist, political party that had based itself on the German NSDAP. After the German occupation of Holland in May 1940 the NSB readily collaborated with them and made minor political gains by absorbing smaller, Dutch, fascist political groups. On December 14^TH 1941 the Germans officially authorized the NSB as the only legal political party in Holland and all other political parties were forced to merge with the NSB or disband. On March 11^TH 1943 Mussert announced the formation of the Landwacht Nederland, (Netherlands Territorial Home Guard), to be formed from all physically fit male NSB party members from the ages of seventeen to fifty years old to provide internal national security. On October 16^TH 1943 the Landwacht Nederland was absorbed into the SS and redesignated, Landstorm Nederland and an identifying honor cufftitle was introduced. On November 2^ND 1944 the Landstorm Nederland was upgraded to brigade status and redesignated as SS-Freiwilligen-Brigade "Landstorm Nederland". Finally in February 1945 the unit was upgraded to divisional level and received its final designation, 34.SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division "Landstorm Nederland". Through-out all the upgrades the divisional personnel retained the right to wear the Landstorm Nederland cufftitle. 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 by a cloth RZM/SS approval tag. The dimensions and design of these cloth tags was altered in 1935 and this second pattern tag remained in use until early 1938, when it was replaced by a paper tag. 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: Roughly, 1 1/4" tall, 17 1/8" long, machine woven, black rayon construction cufftitle with BeVo, machine woven, Latin script, "Landstorm Nederland" in silvery/grey rayon threads. The cufftitle is bordered at both the top and bottom edges with interwoven, vertically stitched, silvery/grey rayon threads. The cufftitle has the typical "salt & pepper" pattern reverse. The cufftitle is in overall good, unissued condition minor fraying to both of the unfinished ends and minimal age toning.

GRADE ****                             PRICE $2,039.00