Nazi badge

This eagle was one of the trophies acquired by members of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Norfolk Regiment. When the battalion was ordered to cease fire at 0800 hours 5th May 1945, it had fought its way from the D-Day beaches of Normandy, through the Netherlands and into Germany, reaching Bremen, Lower Saxony. The unit remained in Germany after victory until February 1951, first as part of the Allied Army of Occupation and then the British Army of the Rhine. During this time they spent over a year in Berlin including the period of the Russian blockade and the Airlift. It was probably then that Nazi mementoes were collected as trophies. These included ceremonial swords, mosaic tiles from Hitler's Chancellory and eagle emblems. The eagle was the traditional emblem of the Holy Roman Empire since the time of Charlemagne in 800 AD, ultimately deriving from the Roman army standard. The Nazi party showed it gripping a wreath of oak leaves enclosing a swastika, originally an Indian sign of good fortune. After much debate, the eagle again figures as the symbol of reunited Germany. But the sculpture presiding over the Bundestag parliament is a much more pacific bird and, of course, holds no swastika.