Article about: One writes much about RZM tags in one's headgear. Here is the license itself from the RZM to a retailer of various articles in the German speaking part of Belgium, Eupen-Malmedy. This licens
One writes much about RZM tags in one's headgear. Here is the license itself from the RZM to a retailer of various articles in the German speaking part of Belgium, Eupen-Malmedy. This license was for a brauner Laden, a place that retailed a variety of Nazi articles. Maybe its owner sold non NSDAP, military and civil uniform goods, too. Who knows?
This sort of thing is quite rare, as are the Mitteilungsblaetter d. RZM, the directives from the same agency of the party for such vendors as this man.
Maybe a collector from the low countries knows more of this man, or of this locale. Malmedy is famous for other reasons, of course.
A miniscule, but all the same important part of our inquiry.
This piece went to a well known collector-dealer. The image of the license is from ebay, and the RZM advert from Derek Chapman
Does anyone of you have something similar?
The advertisement is from 1933 or so, I think, while the license itself is from 1940.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 07-12-2008 at 02:46 PM.
Here is an image of a brauner Laden in what I think is Berlin, but I cannot be certain. Maybe someone else can recognize where this is...This one seems to be a book store, first and foremost, but maybe they sold Nazi uniform items, too. You can see the sign "brauner Laden." Surely certain of these establishments that endured until US GIs found them in the Spring of 1945 offered up their contents to reside one day in your collection. Or not..
The image is courtesy of Robert Noss, I think.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 07-12-2008 at 06:35 AM.
I can recall that when I was a student in West Germany in the early 1970s, my guest family of Berliners in Bonn (of whom there were a lot, of course, in those days...) thought that the collection of this material was a combination of absurd and odd. I can only imagine, were they alive, what they would say about these old Nazi stores and what this material fetches today. My host father had been a Hauptsturmfuehrer in the SD with Franz Six as an expert on the USSR. He was a native of Petersburg, who was a kind of foreign area officer for the SD Hauptamt, I guess. All this man had of this uniform were a few pictures of his son in an overseas cap and the 1933 dagger, saluting with great solemnity. I do not get the sense that he took it all very seriously. Not at all what one sees in the propaganda pictures, really. He had a memoir of his SS service, and especially of his prisoner of war period, which led eventually to being a translator for the British forces. We had many conversations about the III. Reich, but I think they were always slightly unnerved by my interest.
All a long time ago to be sure. Mr. Lumsden mentioned the BBC series on police being transported back to 1973, so I am following suit.
Friedrich, I am currently behind one huge Leitz folder with RZM informations and other RZM paperwork. Not sure what is all in there but I still have to work to get it. It might takes long but I will get when the price is not absolute abstract.
Dear Friend, please share your treasure with us when you find it. This kind of thing is always interesting. The one I illustrated went to the hands of a dealer collector who is less forthcoming than you are. Your skills with photography are better, too. A mutual friend of ours tried to snatch it, without success. This piece I illustrated consisted of several soft folders, with the Mitteilungsblaetter, the Reichsgesetzblatt and uniform specifications of all kinds. Very interesting in its own right, and one day it will come to market at some staggering valuation and be difficult to secure because of the vanity of its owner.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 07-14-2008 at 02:39 PM.
Here is an image of the actual process from the wartime Peek & Cloppenburg uniform book with its nice images...of course, these are army uniforms in production here, not those of the party. This firm (which still goes great guns...but likely makes no uniforms...) also made party uniforms.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 07-14-2008 at 04:23 PM.
Since my family had some heritage in dry goods in a storied time, this sort of thing interests me, as I am sure it does others. Here is a Peek & Cloppenburg ad from 1933. A pity one cannot step back in time to find these items. By the way, Germans make very good clothes, or at least they once did. I guess a lot of what one buys now is from Romania and Thailand. No offense meant to these fine locales, but I grew up with clothes from Germany and they were always robust, nicely made, and a fabulous value for what one paid. Which is not too feasible in the world of the dollar as dinar.
This image is courtesy of Derek Chapman who is a genius of this kind of material.
The other aspect, of course, in this story is the Nazi offensive against Jews in the Textilbranche, and the manner in which the RZM aided the purposes of Aryanization, i.e. the expulsion of Jews from this branch of trade in Berlin, or Vienna, where they had a traditional role. At the same time, there are also instances, I have since found, of Nazi workers at a Jewish owned textile firm prior to 1938 or so protesting the refusal of contracts or aryanization so as to keep their jobs. There is a fine literature on Aryanization, i.e. the whole sale plunder of Jewish business and persons in the cases of Berlin, Munich and Vienna. If one is seriously interested in this aspect of who and how this regalia was made (as I am..) then these works repay reading.
This point was lost on one author known to us who could not figure out why a leading Berlin regalia maker was able easily to move from Alt Moabit to the vicinity of Alexanderplatz in 1939, i.e. after the 9 November 1938 Kristalnacht progrom and a further wave of such plunder and murder. The heirs of said regalia maker were confused as to why the city of Berlin would not restore their property to them once East Berlin rejoined the FRG under Article 23 in 1990. An important detail left out of the account, to be sure. Goetz Aly has written interesting books on the way in which many people profited in various ways from these practices of the seizure of private property as part of ethnic cleansing, either in the acqiuistion of real estate or even very modest things like furniture later sold at auction or provided to victims of air raids.
Happy collecting.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 07-15-2008 at 03:05 PM.
with the RZM tag goes the RZM license
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