Winterhilfswerk and black caps

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is how these things actually looked on the heads of SS men while the latter collected for the Winterhilfswerk in 1939 or so. If the date of the picture is to be believed, one of these images is from the fall of 1939. Black uniform still very much in use here. These are plainly staff people from Berlin, who also likely were full timers, and yet still in a black suit.

Some interesting regalia amid the friendly propaganda images. I wonder where all of these people were by May 1945?

[Bob Hritz]

The kind act of raising money for winter relief, by the smiling member of the Race and Settlement Main Office, is truely a dichotomy. I wonder if everyone was so joyful in giving or gave to prevent suspicious (or sinister) thoughts.

Bob Hritz

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The whole idea of a healthy race and healthy families was central to widely held beliefs in the regime, and was especially present in the wooly ideas of Himmler, Darre, Backe and others. As you know, these people just did not smile very much at those whom the regime considered unhealthy either in the sense of race or families. Then you got something other than a smile. But the public face of the thing was as you see it here. At the same time this 1939 photo was made, the T-4 program had begun, in which the mentally impaired and those with severe inherited diseases were being put under the gas.

And, the Winterhilfswerk was also a central part of the socialist aspect of the regime, and its emphasis on an effective social welfare system in contrast to that of the failed republic, or so the Nazis want one to believe.

Surely peer pressure and how things appeared to one's neighbors was a central aspect of the regime, too. Denunciation was the engine of terror and it worked with great power.

But these are propaganda pictures, pure and simple.

They also show black caps in wear with the cap spring, and it is this kind of cap that turns up nowadays, as a side comment.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

More on this theme...the first SS charity street campaign for the WHW. Here a member of an Allgem. SS signals unit.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Goebbels collected for the Winterhilfswerk surrounded by SS men...December 1935. Other party branches in evidence, as well. Notice the shape of the caps.