History

The 29th Waffen Grenadier Division (1st Italian) was raised in September of 1944 when Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade (Italian) received around 3000 militia volunteers and was given status as a division. It was the second division to be assigned the number 29, the first being the 29th Waffen Grenadier Division (1st Russian), which had been disbanded.

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 a fasces (a bundle of sticks with an axe blade), an ancient Roman symbol adopted by the Italian fascists. Uniquely, this collar tab had a red rather than black background. A black version was designed and produced, but never issued.

The collar tab was produced by covering a parallelogram shaped piece of buckram with red cloth. The collar tab was then machine-embroidered with white or silver thread. Officer grade tabs may have been embroidered using aluminium wire and piped with twisted aluminium cord.