Unique WW2 Dog Tag from Stalag 17
Hey guys, this morning I decided to do another quickie. And it's because I was cleaning out my office and I found a pretty rare item, actually the dog tag is not that rare. But I know you guys love it when I clean out my office because I always find things that I forgot I had. And I appreciate all you volunteers who have written to me and say hey, listen, next time you want to clean your office out I'll come over and help. It’s fantastic here the stuff I find.
A German Dog Tag
But this is a German dog tag, issued to the German soldiers. A little bit different than the American dog tag but the purpose is basically the same. I would assume if somebody was killed in battle what they would do, you can see this perforation along here, and what I've seen is they would just break this off, the top half staying with the soldier and the bottom half going to the commanding officer. So he could report the death or the loss of a soldier. So this is a dog tag. I've seen them sell before, they're not really expensive. The ones that are heavily faked are things like SS Panzer Division or Adolf Hitler's Personal Division - SS division. Some of those are fake because collectors like them.
A Unique Tag
This one is unique in that it was issued to an American prisoner of war. You can see that's writing at the top and the bottom. We have hidden the name out of respect for the family, we've hidden the name of this particular soldier but he was a prisoner of war. You can see on the top and the bottom Luft Stalag XVII, seventeen is in Roman numerals. That's one of the reasons I put this one aside because it's from Stalag 17. Now Stalag 17 was a famous or infamous Luftwaffe Camp basically for Air Corps members, so American and British Flyers that were shot down were sent…some of them were sent to Stalag 17. And in 1953 they actually made a movie about Stalag 17, I have a little poster here [2:13-2:30 Poster].
The Stalag 17 Movie
Perhaps you've watched the whole movie, if you haven't it's a great Sunday afternoon you want to watch an old movie watch Stalag 17. What's interesting about Stalag 17 in 1953 is it is a comedy. And it was because they really felt like the war had caused so many scars and it was obviously brutal. A lot of people Americans and people throughout the world were really brutalized through the war and suffered a lot. So they made Stalag 17 as a kind of a…it's a serious drama but also comedic, to help people heal from the wounds of the war. Now the movie back then was one of the most popular movies ever made. It grossed ten million dollars which was phenomenal back then, that's chump change today but ten million dollars. And they actually did a sequel, a TV show called Hogan's Heroes. Perhaps you watched it, I did when I was young. Hogan's Heroes with Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz and Colonel Hogan, probably you've seen some of those episodes but again, it was a prisoner of war camp in this case it was Stalag 13. And they did a TV show that was comedic to help people get over the stress and the trauma of war.
A Great Reminder of Our History
So finding this just reminded me of that part of our American history as people tried to heal from the war wounds. Now this will be thrown back in a drawer and I'll discover it again and in another five years and say oh look what I found. Hey thanks for watching and stay tuned for more.