GSSN Sleeve Raven

[Brig]

Since my tour in Norway, I have developed an interest in maybe dabbling in Norwegian WWII era militaria...Norway, Norway in Exile, Norway in Occupation...all very interesting stuff, but very difficult to find information on outside of Norwegian circles. Even Norwegian Volunteer stuff seems to be relatively scarce to find info on. I was fortunate to visit a few very historic sites in Norway that had at least small displays, including the Armoury Museum in Trondheim, the museum at Hegra Fortress, and the Falstad Concentration Camp. I had seen the Nasjonal Samling Party emblem over the years but hadn't really paid attention, as I am not a big TR collector and it was a niche.

 

A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon a Nasjonal Samling Party Cap Eagle being sold and decided it was a good chance to at least stick my toe in the water on Norwegian stuff. I was a bit surprised to learn, as the description was all of 3 words, that it was actually a lot that also came with a large NS Raven. I had to look up what it was for, turns out it was for the Norwegian SS (GSSN). I could only find a small handful of them discussed on WAF over the years, seems to be a tough one to track down.

 

The GSSN originally used black uniforms, but later in the war switch to the Waffen field gray. It was common to simply apply this emblem right over the factory applied SS eagle, as seen in the below picture found at WAF (http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=276778&highlight=gssn)

 

Neat start to assembling a GSSN insignia group, which seems to be a long and expensive endeavor, as it's some of the more scarce and desirable foreign SS insignia out there and fairly actively collected in Norway

 

[Militiaman]

A beautiful eagle you have there! Thanks for the interesting post!

 

Rob

[Tony v]

Very nice cap eagle ! Good luck going forward as it should be an interesting endeavor on many levels.

 

Tony

[Brig]

Very nice cap eagle ! Good luck going forward as it should be an interesting endeavor on many levels.

 

Tony

It is actually a sleeve eagle.

 

The GSSN very briefly wore a silver eagle similar to the Hird on their covers very early in the war before transitioning to just the skull. The early eagles are so rare that most longtime GSSN collectors have never handled one, and I am yet to even see a real one (plenty of fakes out there, mostly British made)

[Brig]

Here is an example of a (Fake) GSSN cap eagle...not to be confused with political party emblems which were silver but had straight/flat tops to the wings, much like German.

 

The tell-tale giveaway of these being fake is the enamel...the Norwegians never used enamel in their cap badges, either they painted the background of left them the color of the rest of the emblem. Additionally, Norwegian badges always had thin round prongs that were notorious for falling off over the years, flat prongs are signs of reproduction. Additionally, fakes are being made with the British style loops for cotter pins...a reproduction GSSN like above with cotter loops recently sold on auction for $300!

 

It's interesting to note that the GSSN was not a strictly German organization...but fell under Quisling's government, although it was greatly opposed by Quisling himself and he urged good party members not to join. It never got very large, sporting only 1247 members in September 1944

[Tony v]

Great information, thank you

 

Tony

[ponyradish]

Nice eagle. Quite hard to find. All my years finding this stuff, I have never pulled one out. Pony.

[Brig]

Now I just need to find the rest of the insignia ensemble...shouldn't take more than a decade or two, I'm sure