Germany - Third Reich: SS 8 Year Long Service Medal, complete with original ribbon.
Condition: Nearly Extremely Fine
The eight-year service award was finished in bronze and was awarded to all Officers, NCOs and enlisted men. The eight-year service medal was manufactured by the firms Petz & Lorenz and Deschler. It was first introduced by Adolf Hitler on 30 January 1938, but some other sources give the date as 14 March 1936. On its reverse side, each award had emblazoned the inscription, in German: FÜR TREUE DIENSTE IN DER SS ( For Loyal Service in the SS ). The medal was awarded to SS members in the SS-VerFugungstruppe, SS-Totenkopfverbande and the SS-Junkerschule who served honourably and were on active service. The four-year and eight-year awards are the most common awards, and as such, are not as rare, but the twelve-year and higher awards are a lot rarer, and those that owned them were likely to have been too old to have served on the front lines. Despite the fact that the whole Nazi movement lasted for little over 25 years (1919-1945) and the SS were founded only in 1923, awards of the 25-year version were made well before 25 years of actual service were completed. This was because the period between 1925 and 1933 (what the Nazis termed Kampfzeit ( Time of Struggle ) counted double, and any service in the Armed Forces in the First World War and afterwards, as well as the Police, was also included. Nevertheless, it was one of the rarer awards given out by Nazi Germany. The 40-year award was never given out because no one fulfilled its criteria
