Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very nice and somewhat rare German WWII Werkschutz (Factory Protection Service) Pebbled Aluminum Belt Buckle (Koppelschloß). These were used by the security personnel at major factories, which had to look out for saboteurs as well as resistance forces. This was especially important at major suppliers, such as Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke GmbH, a major producer of Aircraft for the Luftwaffe. They had multiple locations, and security was of the utmost importance.

The belt buckle is relatively standard wartime "box" construction, made from stamped and crimped aluminum, with no magnetic components whatsoever. The front of the buckle displays a lovely pebbled field, with the Heinkel "Winged H" logo inside a circular triple border. Condition is very good, showing only light wear and oxidation, with the details all still crisp.

A very nice example of a rare belt buckle, ready to add to your collection and display!

More on the Werkschutz Factory Protection Service
The history of the Factory Protection service is somewhat convoluted, but appears to have involved both the DAF and the RLB, which was involved with the closely related Werkluftschutz (Factory Air Raid Protection) service.

The DAF Labor Front was the result of a forced association of all German trade unions, established on May 10, 1933. Its purpose was the coordination and control of all aspects of German labor to serve the interests of the NSDAP, and in reality did little to help or improve the status of workers.. The DAF leader was Reichsleiter and Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley, who would later commit suicide before the Nuremberg trials.

The Werkscharen (Factory Brigades) of the DAF were the “soldiers” of the organization, formed in 1934. They were trained and organized as paramilitary, uniformed units, yet remained unarmed. Beginning in April 1937, active Werkschar units (Stoßtrupps) would wear silver-colored insignia, while administrators wore gold-colored insignia. Even though Werkscharen were not affiliated with the Reichsluftschutzbund (RLB, National Air Raid Protection League), during the war they often functioned as factory air raid protection auxiliaries.

Some companies, especially major corporations, used additional security personnel, which were dubbed Werkschutz (Factory Protection), and later Werksicherheitsdienst (Factory Security Service). Werkschutz insignia were first introduced in late 1937, which was an art deco style eagle looking to the left. holding a canted shield with a black swas (hook cross) on it.

Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke GmbH (from 1943 Ernst Heinkel AG), Heinkel for short, was one of the largest German aircraft construction companies in the first half of the 20th century. Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke held 1,352 patents in the field of aviation and 587 intellectual property rights in the engine area. Machines and licenses were sold to Denmark , Finland , Sweden , Hungary , the Soviet Union and Asia. The company designed civil and later military aircraft in particular. She brought Rostock, the final breakthrough in terms of industrialization in the first half of the 20th century. Rostock became a modern city and high-tech location. The number of employees rose from around 1,000 in 1932, also through the operation of other plants in Germany and in occupied Poland and Austria, to around 9,000 in mid-1939 and around 16,000 at the end of 1944.

The Heinkel company is most closely associated with aircraft used by the Luftwaffe during World War II. This began with the adaptation of the He 70 and, in particular, the He 111, to be used as bombers. Heinkel also provided the Luftwaffe's only operational heavy bomber, the Heinkel He 177, although this was never deployed in significant numbers. The German Luftwaffe equipped both of these bombers with the Z-Gerät, Y-Gerät, and Knickebein, developed by Johannes Plendl, and thus they were among the first aircraft to feature advanced night navigation devices, common in all commercial airplanes today.

Heinkel was less successful in selling fighter designs. Before the war, the Heinkel He 112 had been rejected in favor of the Messerschmitt Bf 109, and Heinkel's attempt to top Messerschmitt's design with the Heinkel He 100 failed due to political interference within the Reichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM — Reich Aviation Ministry). The company also provided the Luftwaffe with an outstanding night fighter, the Heinkel He 219, which also suffered from politics and was produced only in limited numbers, but was the first Luftwaffe front-line aircraft to use retractable tricycle gear for its undercarriage design, and the world's first front-line military aircraft to use ejection seats. By contrast, the only heavy bomber to enter service with the Luftwaffe during the war years – the Heinkel He 177 Greif – turned out to be one of the most troublesome German wartime aircraft designs, plagued with numerous engine fires from both its inadequate engine accommodation design and its general airframe design being mis-tasked, for a 30-meter (100 ft) class wingspan design, to be built to be able to perform moderate-angle dive bombing attacks from the moment of its approval by the RLM in early November 1937, which would not be rescinded until September 1942.

From 1941 until the end of the war, the company was merged with engine manufacturer Hirth to form Heinkel-Hirth, giving the company the capability of manufacturing its own powerplants, including its Heinkel Strahltriebwerke turbojet engine manufacturing firm.

The Heinkel name was also behind pioneering work in jet engine and rocket development, and also the German aviation firm that attempted to popularize the use of retractable tricycle landing gear, a relative rarity in early WWII German airframe design. In 1939, flown by Erich Warsitz, the Heinkel He 176 and Heinkel He 178 became the first aircraft designs to fly under liquid-fuel rocket and turbojet power respectively.

Heinkel was the first to develop a jet fighter to prototype stage, the Heinkel He 280, the first Heinkel design to use and fly with retractable tricycle gear. In early 1942, the photographic interpretation unit at RAF Medmenham first saw evidence of the existence of the 280 in aerial reconnaissance photographs taken after a bombing raid on the Rostock factory. Thereafter, the Allies began intensive aerial reconnaissance intended to learn more about the German jet aircraft programme.

The He 219 night fighter design was the first German frontline combat aircraft to have retracting tricycle gear, and the first operational military aircraft anywhere to use ejection seats. Heinkel's He 280, the firm's only twin-jet aircraft design to fly never reached production, however, since the RLM wanted Heinkel to concentrate on bomber production and instead promoted the development of the rival Messerschmitt Me 262. Very late in the war, a Heinkel single-jet powered fighter finally took to the air as the Heinkel He 162A Spatz (sparrow) as the first military jet to use retractable tricycle landing gear, use a turbojet engine from its maiden flight forward, and use an ejection seat from the start, but it had barely entered service at the time of Germany's surrender.

The Reichsluftschutzbund (National Air Raid Protection League or RLB):
The RLB was first organized by Hermann Göring in 1933 as a voluntary association. Existing volunteer air raid precaution associations were forced to merge with RLB. In 1939 the RLB became a Körperschaft des öffentlichen Rechts (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization), while in 1944 it became an affiliated organization of the NSDAP Party. It was in charge of educating and training ordinary German men and women in civil defense procedures necessary for the basic level of local self-help of the civil population against air raids. The local level was formed around air raid wardens and operated in small first intervention squads. The training include fire fighting, protection against chemical weapons, communication procedures and preparation of houses and apartments against air raids.