An HJ - Streifendienst Cufftitle

In black rayon with yellow embroidered lettering, inscribed in Gothic script "HJ - Streifendienst", snap closures located on the reverse, one at the left, two at the right and one in the centre, 27 mm x 387 mm, extremely fine. Footnote: This special HJ "policing" unit was established in 1934. Functioning somewhat like an auxiliary police force. The HJ-Streifendienst members were to ensure that all HJ activities, approved functions and meetings were organized and ran according to stated Nationalist Socialist policies. Illegal dissension to the German regime or to the HJ organization, were to be neutralized or quelled as rapidly as possible. All HJ-Streifendienst members were expected to report suspicious and anti-Nationalist Socialist behavior to their supervisors and to the appropriate security components of the Third Reich. This often meant that children turned in their parents to the authorities for harbouring different views to the approved norm. The HJ-Streifendienst youths worked closely with their adult counterparts in the Geheimestaatspolizei (Gestapo) and the Schutzstaffel (SS). As such, they were usually hand selected and they felt themselves to be more of an elite class of HJ members. In 1938, Baldur von Schirach, as the Reichsjugendfuhrer, and Heinrich Himmler, as the Reichsführer-SS, formalized this arrangement by stating that the functions and responsibilities of the HJ and the SS were identical throughout Germany. The HJ-Streifendienst also had a more sinister function. It operated as a special personnel pool for Junkerschulen (SS-Officer's schools, SS recruits and SS Totenkopfverbände (concentration camp guards). In Poland, some German HJ-Streifendienst members were organized into special "Rollkommandos" (pursuit detachments) who worked with SS execution squads. The HJ-Streifendienst members wore a black cuff band with the "Streifendienst" inscription on their sleeve.