[Ron Wood]

I posted this on the old forum, perhaps I might be forgiven if I run it up the flagpole again:

The Death Head has long been a symbol of honor in German heraldry. It signified honor unto death, a commitment to lifelong knightly honor, not "death before dishonor" as many have attributed to it. In Imperial Germany, the privilege of wearing the DH was bestowed only to those units that displayed exemplary honor and valor in battle. The First and Second Leib (bodyguard) Hussars (Kaiser Wilhelmâ??s personal honor guard), the 17th Brunswick Hussars, and the Brunswick 3rd Battalion 92nd Infantry Regiment were the most notable. As time went on, other units incorporated the DH into their insignia, but without the imperial commission that earlier units had. The use of the DH on early Lugers is an enigma and has been attributed to the three units mentioned above plus "Freikorps" units during the late Weimar era, flamethrower or "Flammenwerfer" units, tank units, sturmbattalions and a few others. It is the flamethrower connection that is currently considered the most favorable theory (see Jan Still's "Imperial Lugers" and "Weimar and Early Nazi Lugers" volumes) The lazy S surmounting the skull it thought to be a stylized reprsentation of a flamethrower pattern.