My grandfather has an old Nazi Armband and It has the markings that would suggest it was worn by a Gauleiter. Can anyone tell me what a Gauleiter is and what the armband might be worth? It's in mint condition.

Do you have picture of it?

no but i coul get one easily. i plan to make a trip to his house later today. i cold use the scanner.

A Gauleiter was a leader of a local branch of the NSDAP (more commonly known as the Nazi Party) or the head of a Reichsgau (an administrative division of the state). The German word Leiter means leader, whilst the Gau was the region itself. Only five of the Nazi Gauleiter were university or technical school graduates.

The only Reichsgaue were the former states of Austria, the Sudetenland, Wartheland, and Danzig-Westpreussen, all of which were new territories annexed to Germany since 1938. The rest of the Reich remained administratively divided into Länder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauleiter

I don't know what it is worth, because trading with items like that is highly prohibited in Germany.

Early in Hitler's career, Germany was divided into 42 districts called Gaue. Each Gau was supervised by a District Leader (Gauleiter) i.e., the Gauleiter for Berlin was Dr Joeseph Geobbels. Each Gau was divided into circuits (Kreise) led by a Kreisleiter (Circuit Leader) Berlin had 10 Kreise and each Kreise was then divided into Local Groups (Ortsgruppe) headed by an Ortsgruppenleiter of which Berlin had 269. This was further subdivided into Street Cells (Zellen) supervised by the Zellenleiter, whose duty was to report on all anti-government activities within the families living in that street. German civilians living abroad were regarded as the 43rd Gau. All Leaders were required to swear unconditional allegiance to their Führer.

After the fall of Poland, Himmler issued a top secret document to all eastern Gauleiters. In it he proposed that "racially valuable people from Poland be removed and Germanized". The masses were to become a "leaderless nation of common labour". They were not to be taught anything more than simple arithmetic and how to write their own name. They could earn enough for simple living needs but the lowest German peasant must still be ten percent better off than any Pole. They could keep their Catholic priests so they would for ever remain "dull and stupid". All intellectuals were to be exterminated. It was Hitler's intention to obliterate all traces of Polish history and culture. Even towns and villages were renamed in German.

I will try and find some more info on Gauleiters and the arm bands...

Hope this helps a bit..
Michael Marietta GA