Heer EM/NCO M34 Breast Eagle

Very early machine woven, national breast eagle with out-stretched wings, clutching a wreathed, canted, swastika in it’s talons in silvery/white threads on a cut-out, pale grey rayon base. The eagle is still on its original, pale grey rayon factory roll and is in overall excellent, un-issued condition. Hard one to find.

The German army originally adopted a slightly modified version of the NSDAP’s, national eagle by order on February 17TH 1934, with instructions to have it applied to all steel helmets, visor caps, and tunics by May 1ST 1934. Later amendments to the introductory order stipulated that the national eagle was also to be worn on all field caps, the sports uniform and the black panzer wrap tunic. The eagle came in three distinct designs with two having slightly different out-stretched wings and the third with down-swept wings. Generally officer’s ranks utilized hand or machine embroidered breast eagles while EM/NCO’s ranks utilized machine embroidered or machine woven breast eagles. During the war the breast eagles were manufactured in a variety of slightly different manufacturing techniques and colorations. The early produced M36 and M39 breast eagles were mounted on a dark blue/green base while later production models were on a field-grey base. Both the M36 and the M39 breast eagles were intended for wear on the combat field blouse.