Luftwaffe Erkennungsmarke

dave toles · Post by **dave toles** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 1:47 pm

I am trying to decipher some ID tags I found while metal detecting in Germany. The one in question is marked, 3./FlakSchw.Abt.909 I translate this as 3d Squadron, 909th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. Am I close? Below this it has (F.W.) could this be a variation of FRW (Freiwillige)? The blood group is in parentheses also. Does this mean anything or is it just how this units waffenmeister made his tags? Can someone reccomend a site to help me with this? Any help will be appreciated very much, Thanks, Dave

Scott Revell · Post by **Scott Revell** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:36 pm

Dave,

You were close with your Erkennungsmarke. 3./FlakSchw.Abt.909 actually stands for the 3rd Battery/Anti-Aircraft Searchlight Battalion 909. So they would provide the search lights for the Flak guns shooting at Allied aircraft.

More information about your particualr unit can be found here:

http://ww2.dk/ground/flak/abt/sw909.html

From that site you can see that the searchlight unit spent 2 years in Schweinfurt and one year in Bremen. The rest of the war the unit was located in Austria.

Regarding information about German Dog-Tags - you can actually find some great information on this site. For example have a look here: http://www.feldgrau.com/soldier-id.html. Remember though German soldiers were issued a Dog Tag at their first unit and would keep this dog tag where ever they went. The dog tag would never change. So therefore it is very hard (but not impossible) for example to research a soldier that joined in 1939 because he may have been posted to half a dozen units before being killed in 1944 by just using the dog tag.

However it you did want to research it then I suggest trying the Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt). Their site is http://dd-wast.de/.

This is an online source for conducting "tracing requests" on soldiers of the German Wehrmacht during World War II. By providing WASt with personal information on the soldier you are looking for (in this case a Dog Tag) they will conduct a search in their records and archives and hopefully provide a report on his career, awards and decorations and unit history. It can sometimes takes up to 6 months for WASt to provide a reply via mail, so be patient.

I hope that helps and good luck

Scott

dave toles · Post by **dave toles** » Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:51 pm

Thanks for the info Scott. In case anyone wants to know I did take all the tags I found to a local govt office in the Kreis and offer to give them to them. They said no I could keep them but they were very interested in noting down all the info.