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Special Forces in Germany?


Demon lord
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Lance,

 

Thank you for this interessant link!

 

What do the Greek letters, and the red sign on the handle of the knife?

 

Regards,

Jérôme

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flashesandovals

Hi everyone,

 

I would like to identify this Special Forces Patch:

 

10th_s10.jpg

 

Thanks in advance.

Jérôme

 

Can you please post a pic of the back of that patch?

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USMarineCorps

This is a reproduction; the stitching is off. This one probably has a gauze back, covered by some paper-like material.

The letters are indeed de three types of radiation; the shape is the one of the SADM and the colors are the 10th SFG colors and the german flag colors. I believe the dagger is an SS one, referring to Bad Tölz?

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Bad Tolz is a former SS training school. It was taken over by US forces after the war and eventually became the center for Special Forces in Europe. It's relatively close to some of their intended operating areas should WWIII of ever happened.

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Faced with the interest aroused by this post, I still take a photo of the back:

Face à l'intérêt que suscite ce poste, j'ai tout de même fait une photo du dos:

 

wp_20118.jpg

 

 

and a picture to show the thickness of the patch:
et une photo pour montrer l'épaisseur du patch:

wp_20119.jpg

 

 

Are you sure that is a reproduction?? Because I bought it as good vintage...

Êtes-vous sur que c'est une reproduction? Car je l'ai acheté comme bon d'époque...

 

Thank you for the explanation of the symbolism.

Merci pour l'explication du symbolisme.

 

Jérôme

 

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USMarineCorps

as i mentioned before, yours is one of the reproductions with a gauze back, covered by a paper-like backing (some residue can still be seen). The stitching is the most obvious red flag though. Here's how it should look like:

 

post-54106-0-14647400-1416138143.jpg

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A reproduction or, more likely, a late KALKA one. The original patch was made by KALKA in Augsburg and offered for sale as "Article No. 3601 - Spezial Forces Abzeichen mit Messer" (Special Forces insignia with knife). It was part of a couple of 10th SF patches, most of them displayed on the web site linked to in one of the posts before.

 

Please keep in mind: These patches were offered for decades, even after the units were disbanded or had left Germany, the patches were sold by KALKA for surplus shops etc. You still find some remains offered on their website today. During the decades embroidery machines were replaced by new ones. Once again IMHO the one posted by Jérome looks to my like a late "original design" KALKA one, using today's materials. I would keep it.

 

Some of the KALKA 10th SF stuff:

 

Bad Tölz.JPG

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great explanation!
if I understood everything, mine is a late model (late 1970s), manufactured by the KALKA company?

PS: Sorry for not understanding everything perfectly
...

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great explanation!

if I understood everything, mine is a late model (late 1970s), manufactured by the KALKA company?

 

PS: Sorry for not understanding everything perfectly...

 

I would say much later. The patch was sold by KALKA until the late 1990's, early 2000's. My guess is was made in this timefrime.

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  • 9 years later...

Late to the game.  I was looking for something else and stumbled across this thread.  I was the originator of that ODA-7 team patch when I was the team's Senior Medic.  I had them made for our team at Kalka's near Sheridan Kaserne in Augsburg in Aug-Sep 1977 when doing a month-long medical refresher rotation there.  The symbols are:

1 -- shape and color symbolize both our SFDAE flash and our SADMs.

2 -- the dagger and lightning bolts symbolize the SF SSI and the mission of SF.

3 -- the dagger is an SS presentation dagger which symbolizes our kaserne (Flint Kaserne) in Bad Tölz, originally an SS-Junkerschule (officer's candidate leadership training academy) during WW2.  There were 2 such academies; the other was at Braunschweig.

5 -- the atomic symbol in the dagger's handle symbolizes the nature of our SADM and specialized mission.

6 -- the Greek letters symbolize the 3 types of radiation emitted by the SADM (Alpha, Beta, and Gamma).

 

I was kind of 'walking the line' of mission classification when I had these made as it wasn't classified to be known to be SADM trained but it was to have it known that you had a specific SADM mission like we did.  So it goes.

 

These are my personal 2 of the original set of patches I had made by Kalka in 1977.  One is unused and the other was worn on my old PT uniform jacket back then.  I took it off when I got rid of the old uniform sometime in the 80's.  The team photo is ODA-7 in the spring of 1977.  I'm in the back (center).

 

FWIW

SFODA-7 Tm Patch.jpg

ODA71977.jpg

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On 12/31/2023 at 9:34 AM, Purple129 said:

Late to the game.  I was looking for something else and stumbled across this thread.  I was the originator of that ODA-7 team patch when I was the team's Senior Medic.  I had them made for our team at Kalka's near Sheridan Kaserne in Augsburg in Aug-Sep 1977 when doing a month-long medical refresher rotation there.  The symbols are:

1 -- shape and color symbolize both our SFDAE flash and our SADMs.

2 -- the dagger and lightning bolts symbolize the SF SSI and the mission of SF.

3 -- the dagger is an SS presentation dagger which symbolizes our kaserne (Flint Kaserne) in Bad Tölz, originally an SS-Junkerschule (officer's candidate leadership training academy) during WW2.  There were 2 such academies; the other was at Braunschweig.

5 -- the atomic symbol in the dagger's handle symbolizes the nature of our SADM and specialized mission.

6 -- the Greek letters symbolize the 3 types of radiation emitted by the SADM (Alpha, Beta, and Gamma).

 

I was kind of 'walking the line' of mission classification when I had these made as it wasn't classified to be known to be SADM trained but it was to have it known that you had a specific SADM mission like we did.  So it goes.

 

These are my personal 2 of the original set of patches I had made by Kalka in 1977.  One is unused and the other was worn on my old PT uniform jacket back then.  I took it off when I got rid of the old uniform sometime in the 80's.  The team photo is ODA-7 in the spring of 1977.  I'm in the back (center).

 

FWIW

SFODA-7 Tm Patch.jpg

ODA71977.jpg

Thanks for replying to this topic. Very cool and interesting to hear from guys who came up with the patch!

coincidentally I was stationed at a place called Panzer Kaserne from 75-78, located farther West.

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