Overview

Border guard on patrol in East Berlin - NVA photo

Since their founding in 1946, the Border Police and ultimately the Grenztruppen went through several stages of uniform changes. No matter how the uniform changed, though, it always seemed to retain the basic characteristics and traditions of the WWII Wehrmacht uniforms. In fact,  East German military uniforms are popular with WW II re-enactors and theater groups because of the ease in which they can be transformed into Wehrmacht and SS  clothing.

While the uniform worn by the border guards was the basic uniform worn by all land forces in the East German military, the Grenztruppen uniform had two distinct differences. First of all, the border guards were one of the few units allowed to wear a cuff title on the left sleeve of the dress tunic. This cuff title was embroidered with Grenztruppen Der DDR which denoted the soldiers as border guards. The other variation in the uniform was the color green. Green was the branch color of the Grenztruppen, so all piping and bands found on the hats and dress uniforms were made in this color. 

The following pages document the uniforms and accessories worn by the Grenztruppen.