History

The 28. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division ‘Wallonien’ was composed of volunteers from the french-speaking Walloon Region in Belgium. The formation originally served in the Wehrmacht but was later transferred to the Waffen-SS. Despite being classified as a division, in reality, the formation was only the strength of a reinforced brigade.

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 of the tunic and a rank collar tab was worn on the left side.

The division’s collar tab featured the Cross of Burgundy. It was only used for a short period of time before it was replaced by the standard SS runes collar tab.

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.