BACKGROUND: The German armed forces had a tradition, dating from the 1700's, of maintaining a separate branch of Official’s to oversee all administrative and technical functions, thus freeing up active service Officers and allowing them to concentrate on actual military matters. The Official’s were responsible for a wide variety of administrative and technical tasks from Court Martial, Librarian, Supply, Technical and Meteorological Services, to School, Barracks, and Hospital administration. As early as the mid 1800's with the formation of the Imperial Prussian Navy the Officials were allotted distinctive uniform insignia. This tradition continued right up to the Third Reich era and new insignia for the assorted Officials was introduced on October 1ST 1936. The new insignia was worn by Officials with officers rank on both of the lower sleeves of the service uniforms and by Officials with NCO ranks on the shoulder boards. Most officials careers consisted of four varying grades, of high, elevated, medium and low grade with slightly differing identifying insignia for each grade. The grade of the career was determined by the education and/or experience of the individual. During the Reichswehr era the Officials were divided into military and civilian personnel until March 29TH 1935 when the OKM, Oberkommando der Marine, (High Command of the Navy), did away with the differentiation and consolidate all the Officials into the newly formed Wehrmachtbeamte-Marine, (Armed Forces Officials-Navy). The Administrative and Technical Officials were not classified as soldiers but rather as Wehrmacht-Angehörige, (Armed Forces-Members), and were obligated to follow both military and civil servant regulations. Of Note: The Administrative and Technical Officials utilized silver insignia as opposed to the standard golden yellow Kriegsmarine insignia and as a result they were quite often contemptuously referred to as Silberlinge, (Silvered Ones). Also Of Note: Another group of Officials consisting of supplementary and reserve Officers was constituted in November 1938 and were classified as Beamte auf Kriegsdauer, (Wartime Officials). Wartime Officials with military training utilized the same sleeve insignia as the other Officials with the inclusion of outer edge trim while those Officials without military training utilized fouled anchor sleeve insignia. This example is a medium and/or low grade Administration Official’s insignia for the left sleeve and the recipient would have required at least a grade school education for the low grade or a high school degree and apprenticeship experience in a particular specialty for the medium grade.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Vertically oval, navy blue wool base with a hand embroidered Wehrmacht pattern national eagle with down swept wings positioned above a canted swastika and stylized, looped chevron all in bright silver/aluminum wire and bullion threads. The reverse of the insignia still has its original protective blue paper backing intact.