Badges and Insignia of the Third Reich, 1933-1945 [Paperback]

Brian Leigh Davis (Author), Malcolm McGregor (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1993

A guide to German military uniform with nearly 1300 items illustrated in colour artwork. Aimed at all who need authoritative information on the subject - from military historians and uniform collectors to film and TV costumiers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

M J Whitley is an expert of the post-World War One German Navy. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Arms & Armour; Reprint edition (May 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1854091794
• ISBN-13: 978-1854091796
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,652,375 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply the best., May 10, 1999

By 

Jeffery Majer (Chicago, Il USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Badges and Insignia of the Third Reich 1933-1945 (Hardcover)

If you are a collector of WWII German militaria and you do not own this book, you should. Classic volume, features 64 color plates (illustrated by Malcolm McGregor) depicting virtually every patch or badge issued by the Third Reich. Each Item is accompanied by an incitefull description of each item. All-in-all, an excellent sourcebook by a world-renown militaria author. I also strongly reccommend any of Mr. Davis's fine books.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars I totally agree with Stowe, April 20, 2001

By 

E. Chen (California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Badges and Insignia of the Third Reich 1933-1945 (Paperback)

I bought both "Badges and Insignia of Third Reich" and "German Uniforms of the Third Reich" from Amazon.com. I was disappointed. I'm a modeller and looking for reference books for the German uniforms and insignias. But I found out those books may be good sources for the collectors or historians, but not for modellers. It should use tables for the illustration and catagorize the shoulder strips and insignias by ranks. It does not have enough information for the representation of color used around/on the shoulder strips and insignias.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The English father of German uniform books strikes again, July 31, 2004

By 

Michael A Dorosh (Calgary, AB, CANADA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Badges and Insignia of the Third Reich 1933-1945 (Hardcover)

I can understand the frustration of the modellers below, however, this book was clearly not written for them.

There are many online resources now regarding German Army rank insignia for those so inclined.

What this book does is give a very broad overview of the scope of German insignia throughout the Reich - from train conductors to the various branches of the military, the Party, the ladies auxiliary services, and more - even the Legion Condor is included.

Given the broad approach to this enormously complex subject, only a taste can be given. I would have preferred that the subject matter be broken up into many volumes, but I'm not sure the market would have borne such an enterprise.

The colour plates are brilliant - rather than photos of fading, rotting artifacts, McGregor has very nicely rendered each piece of insignia by hand. There is a scale bar on each page so one can judge the size of the insignia, all done to scale with each other, plus McGregor has found a technique to actually convey the texture of the embroidery in many cases.

Explanatory text is adequate, and there are period photos throughout the text that provide additional amplification, but not nearly enough.

Rated a 4 because of the technical quality of the coloured plates. Should not be considered the only resource for anyone interested in particular branches.