Muetzenfabrik

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-03-2010, 06:41 PM

by stonemint

F-B, more excellent material. I did find a pic of Karl Diebitsch:

I saw this, too. Where is the solid biographical material on him versus the hand me down, half baked semi hagiographical treatments in the English language literature?

Did someone ever find his personnel file in the Berlin Document Center?

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 01-03-2010 06:41 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-04-2010, 07:07 AM

Here a small article from 1937 on the travail of a uniform tailor in Cologne, who had to adjust to the re militarization of the Rhineland with an avalanche of military orders.

The article points out the difficulties of military tailoring, especially the proper piping of uniforms (have not we always made this point here before...?) and reminds the readers, too, that the center of uniform tailoring had always been Berlin.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-04-2010, 07:42 AM

Perhaps the best thing I have found in Uniformen Markt is this account of 1937 of an interview with Eberhard Assmann on the evolution of the RZM in Berlin especially and its antecedents in the years 1927 until 1937. This article makes clear that the collector dogma "pre-RZM" does not hold much water, nor are the urban legends endlessly repeated on other websites deserving of much attention.

I have always written that the documentary records exists for this regalia, and collectors should go out and find same.

Here it is.

Postscriptum: there is a 2d page here I have not included, but will presently. But this here gives you some idea of the context and missing story.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-05-2010, 05:48 AM

Here is the 2d page, from which one can read that many of the firms known to us were present in the early NSDAP from an early moment in the period 1924-1933, i.e. in der Kampfzeit.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-05-2010, 05:49 AM

Here an article about the Army being irritated about tailored uniforms that do not conform to regulations, which suggests that there was more than one of them.....and this in a place where collectors (especially US ones...) suggest that all Germans and Nazis followed all rules all the time.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-05-2010, 05:52 AM

Here is follow on article to the effect that the saddle shape extra Muetze with the high crown was, itself, contrary to army regulations and endangered with its popularity the entire Extramuetze trade....

How does this fact fit into collector group think....and gun show lore and its many myths without any foundation in historical fact?

If these caps with the high crowns were against regulation, how does one explain their existence...?

This article has some bearing on the inane and endlessly circular argument had about Waffenfarbe on SS peaked caps and many other aspects of these uniforms, which one cannot learn about at gun shows or the MAX and the SOS.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-05-2010, 06:06 AM

Here an especially interesting passage about the economic psychology of the extra cap and its place in the soldier's life as well as that of the cap maker. That is, what motivated the soldier to own such a nice cap, when he might have otherwise worn the piece issued to him? The author reflects on same in a manner that no gun show savant or internet guru born in 1970 could hope to do.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-05-2010, 06:08 AM

Who has a copy of the catalog that Eberhard Assmann, the alter Marschierer of the Berlin SA and pioneer of the RZM in Red Berlin, published in 1937? I sure do not. I also imagine that he became a major wholesaler of these items not only because of his connections to the Assmann Luedescheid family, and his bona fides as an Alter Kaempfer, but also as a result of the "Aryanization," that is the ethnic cleansing of the Berlin textile and clothing trade in the period after 1933.

**jws54** · 01-05-2010, 10:00 AM

I am more than amazed and deeply humbled that this information is put here like this to study and learn from such as those who would, did, have and are devoting great amounts of resources to bring it to light. And done with such a manner that is steeped in great patience and great understanding that no one with an interest shall be made to appear foolish for not having been exposed to this before. There are things shown here that years of fetching coffee at shows can't bring. It is not easy to be allowed into the inner sanctum and view the holy of holys. Harder still is being able to understand the times they were created in and why it was so. These elusive bits of information which could lie in a forgotten place, decomposing, never to be seen or known, causing a great ignorance of the very things which shaped our humanity, without the study of which, would relegate these artifacts to the status of a vapid amusing curio.
To me, it is a very daunting task, tackled by very tenacious and extremely capable individuals, who by doing so, wittingly or unwittingly better the lives of those they impart their wisdom to. I expect it is done very wittingly, as a weak constitution could not do it. And I do suppose being at those crossroads indeed defines the person and places a burden upon them which is all or nothing. These in my eyes are pioneers, driven to a task that consumes them.
The selflessness ennobles them. I feel very privileged to have access to this forum and these great men. Thank you seems so small and inadequate, yet,
Thank you.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 01-06-2010, 03:55 AM

Dear JWS, thanks for the kind words and we look forward to your contribution, in turn. Fifty years from now you will write these posts with even greater authority and knowledge, while we shall have turned to dust.