Status
Cuff titles worn by the Waffen SS or Heer were considered a special honour. The history of the Grossdeutschland Division by Helmuth Spaeter describes an instance in which the motorcycle company of the Infantry Regiment "Grossdeutschland" was held to account for losing a position; they were forbidden from wearing their cuff titles until they had earned the privilege back by success in a later battle.
When Waffen SS divisions failed to perform satisfactorily near Vienna in April 1945, Adolf Hitler ordered the units involved to remove their cuff titles as a punishment. SS-Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich was enraged, and reportedly sent his own back to Berlin in a night vase (chamber pot).
Soldiers in training were usually presented the cuff title only on completion of that training, and the award of the title was seen as a rite of passage. This rite is described in the controversial book The Forgotten Soldier.
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Famous quotes containing the word status:
“Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
—Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)
“What is clear is that Christianity directed increased attention to childhood. For the first time in history it seemed important to decide what the moral status of children was. In the midst of this sometimes excessive concern, a new sympathy for children was promoted. Sometimes this meant criticizing adults. . . . So far as parents were put on the defensive in this way, the beginning of the Christian era marks a revolution in the child’s status.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)