History

The 25. Waffen-Grenadier-Division of the SS ‘Hunyadi’ was raised in early 1944 and was composed of Hungarian volunteers and conscripts. “Hunyadi’ refers to Naos Hunyadi, who helped drive the Turks out of Hungary in 1697.

Foreign SS volunteers were not permitted to wear SS runes and instead, they were issued collar tabs that were unique to their division. The divisional collar tab was worn on the right side fo the tunic and a rank collar tab was worn on the left side. The division’s collar tab features a large ‘H’ and was manufactured and issued on a limited basis.

The collar tabs were produced by covering parallelogram shaped pieces of buckram with black cloth. The collar tabs were then machine-embroidered with white/silver thread. Officer grade tabs may have been embroidered using aluminium wire. There are examples of Officer grade collar tabs that are piped with twisted aluminium cord.