Bronze Plaque Depicting SS Soldiers

SUMMARY: This offering is a large bronze plaque showing German SS soldiers and the German Eagle.

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This dramatic plaque was one of several that were found recently in Germany in what was a basement or bunker of the former barracks of the elite division of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. After the war this complex was the barracks known as the Andrew's Barracks of the U.S. Army. According to another US militaria dealer, these plaques were discovered in the sixties when a clean-up crew opened several passages under the barracks where they found unused building material that had been stored there under the auspices of the SS Central Command.(There were SS bills of lading found with the material and inside some crates). Inside some of the crates were both aluminum and bronze plaques like the one being offered. A 1981 phototgraph that appeared in Der Freiwillige, the magazine for veterans of the Waffen SS, revealed that these plaques were used as wall mounts and as external decorations at the SS barracks.The plaques were used to decorate spaces over doors, passageways, emblematic posts and mess halls. See the PHOTO from Der Freiwillige, July-August 1981(TO THE RIGHT).

Eventally these plaques made their way into into the collector market. It is not known how many of these plaques exist but the bonze iteration is less common and more desireable than the aluminum version.The size of these great historical items is 24 ½ inches X 16 inches. The bronze plaque weighs approximately 50 pounds. The eagle depictedabove the soldier became at some point the official logo of the LAH. The shape of the helmets on the men and the odd shape of the SS runes are rendered in such a way as to look 100 percent natural when viewed by a person looking up at the plaque.We have experimented with this and its completely true! Both the helmet and runes look exactly as the should when viewed looking upward.

he Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (German for "Adolf Hitler's Bodyguard Regiment") was a unit of the SS. It was a Waffen SS security and combat formation which saw action on both the Eastern and Western fronts during World War II. As its name suggested, the Leibstandarte started life in the early days of the NSDAP as Hitler's personal, elite bodyguard. As the Waffen SS increased in size throughout the 1930s and into the war years, so the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler evolved into a full-sized panzer division, a detachment of which was always close to Hitler. It went from being guards or "asphalt soldiers" to being one of the most famous military units in the history of modern warfare. The unit saw action in many of the famous battles of the second world war and distinguished itself for ferocity of its fighting and valor.

 

This relic is an authentic and rare artifact dating directly to one of the most famous fighting units in the German army.

Price: $10,000