LeechLord

~Who is Hans Landa?

Before we get into the symbols and their meanings, we need to know who Hans Landa is and what his role was in the Nazi Party. At the beginning of the movie, Hans Landa introduces himself as Colonel Hans Landa of the SS. SS stands for Schutzstaffel (translated: Protective Echelon), which was founded in 1925 by Adolf Hitler. Initially, the SS was made of 8 members who were Hitler's close bodyguards, but later on under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, who became commander of the SS in 1929, it grew to have thousands of members and became a powerful paramilitary unit (☆). The symbol of the SS is two sig runes in the shape of lightning bolts, which we will see later on on Hans's uniform.

The German equivalent of Colonel is Standartenführer (☆). Standartenführer was a paramilitary rank that was used in many organizations in the Nazi Party (☆). We also get Hans's title confirmed as it's written underneath the screen-used hat below. And by the way, you can also see the SS symbol I mentioned before, the two lightning bolts, above the title on the hat.

[A little tangent, I was surprised to find that the actual uniform that Christoph Waltz wore in Inglourious Basterds went up for auction on a website called Propstore and sold in October 2018. The website looks legit but if you want to take a deeper dive feel free to do so. The reference images I use in this post are from that listing unless otherwise mentioned (☆). Below are images of the uniform as a whole. Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming.]

~The Hat

Now that we're on the subject of the hat, and it makes sense to go from top to bottom, let's take a look at what symbols are on it.

The eagle was adopted as the Hoheitszeichen, or national symbol, under Hitler, and is depicted here holding a wreath made from oak leaves with a swastika in the middle (☆). A close-up picture is provided below.

Underneath this eagle is a skull with cross-bones. This skull symbol is called Totenkopf (translated: death's head) and was used universally by the SS, most notably by the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf and SS-Totenkopfverbände branches (☆). If you're curious, the SS-Totenkopfverbände was the paramilitary branch of the SS that was in charge of the concentration camps (☆). They also wore this symbol on the right collar tab of their uniforms. I've included an example image below (☆). Since we don't see this symbol on the right collar tab of Hans's uniform, we can assume that he was not part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände.

~Upper half of uniform (right side)

Alright, now we're getting into the meat and potatoes. I will put some close up images of the upper half/body of the uniform so you can see what it looks like before diving into things.

Let's start at the collar area. The two leaves on the collar tabs are oak leaves and are insignias of the Standartenführer. If you look on the shoulders and see those braided gray shoulder patches with gold those also are insignias of the Standartenführer.

Looking closer at the medal around the neck, we see a cross symbol with two swords forming an "X" with a wreath and swastika in the middle. I looked around on a website that makes reproduction German awards and guessed correctly that this was a Knight's Cross.

The medal that Hans specifically has is a Knights Cross to the War Merit Cross (Ritterkreuz des Kriegsverdienstkeuzes). This "was awarded sparingly over the war years, and because so few were presented the Cross was held in high regards by the Nazi hierarchy, giving it an aura of exclusivity which it may not have fully deserve since it ranked below the Knights grade of Iron Cross. Great ceremonies were normally staged around recipients, with Hitler almost always presenting the award in front of high ranking Military and party officials" (☆). The Knights Cross to the War Merit Cross shown below is gold or more likely gold-plated silver, making it a Knights Cross to the War Merit Cross in Gold, which is even rarer.

There are more symbols and medals following, and to make things easier I will number them in the image.

1. I initially thought this was an Iron Cross, but after looking at other images of it, it doesn't have the wreath around the swastika and is actually another Knights Cross to the War Merit Cross. This one looks to be made of a different metal and doesn't have swords like the previous one. The difference between the one with swords and the one without is as follows: "The Knight’s Cross without swords was awarded for achievements to civilians, state officials, and others not directly associated with the military....The Knight’s Cross Of War Merit with swords was awarded for exceptional military bravery not directly related to combat" (☆).

2. & 3. These are both Nazi Party Long Service Awards (Die Dienstauszeichnung der NSDAP). I'm not 100% sure on the gold one but I believe it's for 25 years of service. The silver one is for 15 years of service (☆, ☆). Interestingly, someone pointed out that these are displayed out of order (☆). It should be the silver one first with the lower amount of service years followed by the gold one with the presumed amount of more service years.

4. This is the German Social Welfare Decoration medal (4th class). It was created by Hitler on May 1st, 1939 and was awarded for "merits in the field of the People’s Welfare, the Winter Relief, the care of the sick and wounded in peace and war, the rescue, the maintenance of German nationality and the care of German national comrades abroad" (☆).

5. This is the Golden Party Badge (Goldenes Ehrenzeichen der NSDAP). By the way, I should've explained this in the beginning but NSDAP stands for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (translated: National Socialist German Workers' Party), or commonly known as the Nazi Party. This badge was for members who "had uninterrupted service with the NSDAP from 27th February 1925 and/or had an NSDAP Party Number from No 1 to 100,000". And a fun fact, "Due to the requirement of unbroken service, a total number of only 22,282 badges were awarded" (☆).

6. This is another Knights Cross to the War Merit Cross. I didn't look further into the meaning behind this one being silver and #1 I presume being bronze, but if anyone wants to look into that go ahead and let me know what you find out.

7. This is the Germanic Proficiency Runes (Germanische Leistungsrune) badge. It was a sports badge created for non-Germans who were part of the Germanic-SS and Waffen-SS and was earned by completing physical tests (☆). If up until this point you were thinking that Hans was German, like I had, this badge is indicating otherwise. The Germanic Proficiency Runes badge shown here is silver, and to achieve this one the physical test limits were higher (☆).

8. This is a Bandit-warfare badge (Bandenkampfabzeichen). There is a more detailed historical explanation behind this one, and I will have the link included, but it was basically awarded for fighting against people who were security risks or "partisans" and "bandits" (☆). The one shown is a silver class one, meaning that the awardee was in combat for 50 days against the "bandits" (☆). I've included a better picture below too so you can see what it looks like.

~Upper half of uniform (left side)

On the left side of the uniform, we have the Blood Order (Blutorden) medal. This medal was one of the most prestigious in the Nazi Party, and "the first decoration...was awarded to 1,500 participants in the putsch who had also been members of the Nazi Party or one of its formations before January 1932 (continuous service), or had been cadets from the Munich Infantry School who marched in support of Ludendorff. All medals were numbered (except Hitler's and Göring's) and awarding was done very carefully" (☆). The award was later extended to people who met certain criteria such as serving time in prison for Nazi activities before 1933.

~Belt

This is a Waffen-SS Officer's brocade dress belt with buckle (Paradefeldbinde / Parade Koppel) (☆). The text on the buckle says Meine Ehre heißt Treue (translated: My Honor is Loyalty), a phrase commonly seen on SS objects (☆).

~Arms

Our last remaining symbols are on the arms. Let's start with the right side. We see the eagle symbol, which I had explained previously, and a new one. This one is of a patch with the letters "SD". SD stands for Sicherheitsdienst, and this was the security/intelligence agency for the SS and Nazi Party. It was established in 1931 and its sister organization, the Gestapo, was established in 1933 (☆).

On the left arm, we see a "V". This is the Honour Chevron for the Old Guard (Ehrenwinkel der Alten Kämpfer). It was worn on the upper part of the right arm and "all members of the SS who had joined the Allgemeine SS, the NSDAP, or any other party organisation prior to 30 January 1933, were entitled to wear the insignia" (☆).

~Ending

If you read all the way through this, congrats and thank you! I hope this helped you learn not only more about Hans Landa but about WWII German military history as well. I was someone who found the subject of history very boring in school, but now I have been inspired to learn it, and yes it's because of Inglourious Basterds. I would like to make similar posts about Dieter Hellstrom and other characters from the movie, but for now I'm going to rest my hands as they're tired from typing 😂