History

In the summer of 1944, the personnel of the Schutzmannschaft-Brigade Siegling were organised into the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (Russische Nr. 2). The division was virtually obliterated during the 1944 German retreat from France and many of the survivors joined the Russian Liberation Army.

In March of 1945, the division was downgraded to a brigade and the national designation was changed to 'Weissruthenische Nr. 1'. The brigade was considered unreliable in battle and was never sent back into combat.

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.

Several collar tab patterns have been attributed to the 30th Waffen Grenadier Division. The pattern with the sword and shield is said to have been issued to Armenians, Georgians, Azerbaijanis, as well as recruits from the Caucasus.

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.