Clothing
& Equipment Labels
By Jonathan Bocek
& Bradley
R. Hubbard
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According to
German regulations, all the clothing & issued
equipment must have the proper stamps & the name of
the owner on it. The name should be in the
proximity of the stamps, on the leather items is must be
glued on.

The
reasoning behind this is exactly what it seems, to
identify the owner of the item. When you have so
many of the same type of items around, you need to be
able to identify which gear is actually yours &
which are not. You were of course responsible for
all items issued to you.
Below you
will find the
original chart showing the proper location of these "Namen"
tabs for each item. This chart was taken from an
early war manual which also shows the proper location of
the "stempel." If you look at the blanket
there is a notation that reads, "In den 3 anderen
Ecken nur mit dem Truppen-Stempel gezeichnet" which
means: In the 3 other corners only marked with the
unit-stamp. The "Stempel" is a
block-line unit stamp of the type used in Soldbuchs.
These unit stamped items can sometimes be found in items
issued earlier in the war, but this type of marking
seemed to be phased out as the war progressed. The
name tabs however, appear to have been utilized
throughout.


These "property
tags" could be a good authentic, yet practical
addition to one's reenacting kit. So, in effort to
help those interested in putting "Namen" tabs
on their gear, here is an
easy way to get personalized period name tabs made up. You
would basically either have a screen printer print a
large template of numerous member tabs in multiple
numbers or do the same, but use one of those home computer iron
on t-shirt kits. Either process should be done
on a stiff linen type cloth. The hard part is getting
the individual tab graphics completed, especially if
your not used to using photo editing software.
First, you
would need to locate an original name tab that has a
format that you like. Scan the image and using a
photo editing software, clean up the image and change
out the name with the personalized first person one (be
sure to use a similar font). Next, set up a large
image template with all the tabs you want to
print. Then, either have the screen printer print
the template on the cloth or print out the iron on type
yourself. Finally, cut out the tabs and attach
them like the regulations say.
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