us-005578-irn42760-irn46849
type: RecordSet
archival history: The identification badge was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2011 by Margery Dannenberg, wife of Martin Dannenberg and executor of his Estate.
biographical history: Martin Ernest Dannenberg Jr. was born on November 15, 1915, in Baltimore, Maryland, to a Jewish couple, Martin Ernest (1891-1946) and Wilhelmina Wilfson (1889-1954) Dannenberg. He had a younger brother, Wilbur (1921-1935). His father Martin worked in the clothing business. His paternal grandparents were German immigrants. In 1842, his maternal great grandfather Charles Winternitz helped found the Har Sinai synagogue in Baltimore, the oldest Reform synagogue in the United States. Martin graduated from City College high school in 1931. He worked as a mail clerk at Sun Life Insurance Company and attended John Hopkins University and University of Baltimore’s Law School at night. On May 29, 1941, Martin married Esther Anne Salzman. On December 8, 1941, following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered World War II. On August 20, 1942, Martin enlisted in the Army. He expessed interest in and was accepted into the Counter Intelligence Corps. After training, Martin was assigned to intelligence cases in the US. In August 1944, Martin, a Master Sergeant, shipped out from Boston to Normandy, France, arriving in September. He was a Special Agent in Charge, 203rd Counter Intelligence Corps Detachment, attached to the III Corps, Third Army, under General Patton. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and reached Germany in early February 1945. One of Martin's duties was to discover evidence for the planned war crimes trials. In April, Martin apprehended a German official in Regensburg, who told Martin he knew the location of the Nuremberg Laws and would take him there if Martin returned him to Eichstatt. On April 27, the informant took Martin and his two man team to a farm near Eichstatt, where Hans Rauch, a Finance Ministry official, was hiding from the Gestapo. Rauch had been told to store the documents by the Waffen SS security chief and had placed them in a bank vault in Eichstatt. Rauch took Martin and his team to the bank vault, where Martin found the original t…
physical characteristics and technical requirements: Small, rectangular, brown leather flap holder with a snap closure containing a gold painted metal badge pinned to an open ended leather square sewn across the center interior. The top of the shield shaped badge extends to form an eagle with cut outs below the outstretched wings. Embossed in the center of the shield is the seal of the US Department of the Army flanked by the letters U and S, with English text, a cuirass, a Phrygian cap, two flags, weapons, and the Roman numeral MDCCLXXVIII (1778) on a textured field. It has a raised border and banners with English text at the top and bottom. An engraved number and a pin and catch are on the back. A silver colored metal cable chain attached to the pin is then attached to a silver colored metal cocoon chain with a spring ring clasp looped through a hole in the leather case. The paint and leather are worn.
conditions of access: No restrictions on access
conditions of use: No restrictions on use
date: 1944 October-1945 May, 1944 October
has or had holder: us-005578
has or had identifier: 1
has or had some members with language: eng
has record set type: Item
identifier: irn46849
is or was included in: us-005578-irn42760
record resource extent: overall: Height: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm) | Width: 2.125 inches (5.398 cm) | Depth: 0.375 inches (0.953 cm)
results or resulted from: 1
scope and content: US Army CIC identification shield used by Martin Dannenberg Jr., a Jewish American soldier awarded a Bronze Star for his wartime service. Martin was a Master Sergeant and Special Agent in Charge, 203rd Counter Intelligence Corps, attached to the III Corps, Third Army. By February 1945, he was in Germany with his unit. One of Martin's duties was to discover evidence for the planned war crimes trials. On April 27, 1945, an informant took Martin and his two man team to a bank vault in Eichstatt, where they discovered an original copy of the Nuremberg Race Laws, signed by Adolf Hitler. This decree was the foundation for the legal persecution of Jews in Germany. It excluded them from citizenship and identified Jews based on racial, not religious grounds. Anyone with 3 or 4 Jewish grandparents was classified a Jew, and marriage or sexual relations with Germans was illegal. Martin photographed the document inside the vault with a Minox Riga camera. The next day, he turned the Nuremberg Laws over to a member of General Patton’s staff, assuming they would be used as evidence in the trials. However, Patton kept them as a personal souvenir and gave them to the Huntington Library in 1945. The existence and provenance of the document was not known until 1999 when the Library lent them for display. In August 2010, the Library donated the document to the National Archives and Records Administration.
title: US Army Military Intelligence ID badge in case used by a Jewish American soldier