Wehrmacht Abbreviations
German Erkennungsmarken (identity tags) from the Second World War often display heavily abbreviated designations of the unit, branch, or service to which the wearer belonged. Due to the limited space on the tags, the names of units, weapon branches, and services were reduced to short, sometimes cryptic abbreviations, which can make it considerably harder to trace the origin of an Erkennungsmarke.
The table below contains over 2,100 such abbreviations along with their full meaning, and can help interpret an abbreviation found on an Erkennungsmarke, document, or other object.
Use the search field to filter by abbreviation or meaning.
| wdt_ID | wdt_created_by | wdt_created_at | wdt_last_edited_by | wdt_last_edited_at | Abbreviation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A.V.Ko. | Artillerie-Verbindungs-Kommando | ||||
| 2 | AVKS | Artillerie-Versuchs-Kommando See (Marine) | ||||
| 3 | AVL | Armee-Verpflegungslager | ||||
| 4 | AVT | Artillerie-Vermessungstrupp | ||||
| 5 | avu | arbeitsverwendungsunfähig (seit dem 4. Juli 1941 "wehruntauglich") | ||||
| 6 | AWA | Allgemeines Wehrmachtsamt (im OKW) | ||||
| 7 | AWIFü | Armee-Wirtschaftsführer | ||||
| 8 | AWS | Armee-Waffenschule | ||||
| 9 | B | Bataillon | ||||
| 10 | B | Bewährung |