Opinions needed on Wehrmacht Heer - Schirmmütze für Sanitätsoffiziere (visor cap for medical officers)

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The system in the Bw of today is little different, save the clothing cooperative has been privatized.

[KSH]

Vielen Dank, Friedrich. Very interesting information as always!

- Kenneth

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Vielen Dank, Friedrich. Very interesting information as always!

- Kenneth

You are most welcome. These things have always interested me.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Yours is a nice army medical cap about which I would have no worries. Who made it is immaterial. US collectors have created a make believe fairy world in which certain cap factories are the arbiters of all things, whereas in reality, there were thousands of cap makers of all stripes, mostly artisans, who made these things in their number. I now own the Handbuch d RZM, which is very revealing of things that mystify some here. The names of most cap makers remain unknown, which is unfortunate, since their work deserves a memorial too in addition to the major industrial cap firms known to most of us....
The Muetzenfabrik thread here speaks to this issue. The Schiffer book on the theme has much merit for a beginner who has read nothing before; though it, too, is not without certain short comings in its foreshortened view of the whole. That is, it is weak on the German economy as a whole and the workings of the uniform craft and industry in the early 20th century as an overall process.

[KSH]

I agree wholeheartedly that who made the cap is immaterial as to the merit of the cap. It would just satisfy my curiosity really to know who made this wonderful cap. I too have seen this peculiar behavior among collectors regarding cap factories/makers that you describe, Friedrich and I have never really understood it.

- Kenneth

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The North American fetish with cap makers is epigony of the contemporary obsession with maker's labels from haute coture gone terribly wrong or the assumption that somehow a Nazi cap is similar to a Daimler Benz or BMW car of the present. It is also the work of certain dealers who want to establish artificial classes of rarity in order to make money. Such also proceeds from a total ignorance about the clothing trade and industry in Germany then and now, as well as no understanding of German society.....then or now.

Since these things interest me, they deserve their role here.

The Muetzenfabrik thread speaks to this question in a jumbled way.

The most important fact: you have a very nice cap of which you can be quite proud.

[BenVK]

I've always enjoyed the cap maker/car maker analogy actualy. I guess it's only natural because I am interested in the histories of them both and have hands on experience fixing them all!

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I've always enjoyed the cap maker/car maker analogy actualy. I guess it's only natural because I am interested in the histories of them both and have hands on experience fixing them all!

You have the signal trait of being able to add value to an object (sports car or Nazi cap), which, in the case of the others, surely does not apply.
You also do not make the website into a mental sewer with poor syntax, pointless posts, and narcissistic celebration of ignorance and thuggish behavior towards others who might know something else or even more...

[Friedrich-Berthold]

But in the early 1950s the Mercedes 190 was a wholly different commercial and otherwise issue than head wear, which was everywhere, not especially expensive, and made by a trade and industry imbedded into the warp and weave of society.
You mourn the loss of the handicrafts and craftsmanship, or crafts woman ship, as do I. Such a thing is totally debased in this globalized, digital society, so that now craftsmanship is a luxury good in view of the big box mass commercialization and killing sameness that afflicts our 21st century world.

Maybe in a world of hot scarcity, people will re discover the dignity and honor of their own work, as well as the learning of a useful skill versus the Mark Zuckerberg fantasy land which has ushered in something far less pleasing, as the "outspoken" congressman from New York discovered with the 08/15 clapped out porn star from Tennessee. Es lacht das Herz!

[KSH]

Friedrich:

Yes, the most important fact is that I have gotten myself a very nice first visor cap! I am just in awe of the wonderful workmanship and skill of the person(s) who made this cap and others like it. To hold something that isn't simply mass-produced, but instead shows so much skilled handwork is a great thing for me at least.

Ben:

I can understand the appealing simplicity of the car maker analogy, I just feel that it can't apply to the German economy of the '30s or the '40s when talking about the manufacture of head wear. Car making is for the most part a pure industrial venture (with all traits and characteristics that follow all industrial production), while the manufacture of caps of the time in question was based on a complex interaction between the older traditions (incl. economy, workmanship etc) of the artisans/individual cap makers on one side and the Henry Ford-style mass producing industry on the other side, at least as I understand it.

I welcome all insights (or critique) on my assertion above, as I am not so knowledgeable on the subject.

- Kenneth