German Flakhelfer (Flak Helper) cloth breast badge : Hitler Jugend (or Hitler Youth)

Embroidered German Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) Flak Helper cloth breast badge. The badge is machine embroidered in light blue cotton thread on black fabric, and features an outline triangle, point downwards, in which is embroidered the gothic letters 'L' and 'H' (for 'Luftwaffe Helfern') above a Luftwaffe eagle holding a swastika.

The Hitler Jugend (or Hitler Youth) organisation was formed in 1933 as a branch of the National Socialist party (NSDAP). All other youth clubs and groups in Germany were incorporated into the HJ, and the Boy Scout movement was banned. In 1939, service in the Hitler Jugend between the ages of ten and eighteen was made compulsory. The Flakhelfern or Flak Helpers were a voluntary group drawn from the HJ who worked on anti-aircraft gun sites. Their primary roles were originally as messengers, signallers, weather observers and ammunition carriers, but as the war situation became more desperate for Germany, the Flakhelfern were regularly pressed into service as gunners, sound locators and searchlight operators, freeing more able-bodied men for front-line combat duties.