grey SS officer's cap, before and after

[ErWeSa]

Dear Sir,
for Benatzky's musical comedy Wulstreifen would have been the norm. (Das Weiße Rössl of today is just another Touristenfalle, leider! Where are the times when the Ischlerbahn went from Salzburg to Bad Ischl? But this is another issue.)
I don't own a Truppenrad (perhaps someone can enlighten us here) and don't know anything about it but Wulstreifen/clincher tires began to be replaced by Drahtreifen in the mid to late 1930ies - so Truppenräder might have been equipped with Wulst- or Drahtreifen.
Considering the shortage of everything during and particularly after the war the success of the black-market where you could get what wasn't officially available is comprehensible - those who owned a bike were well-off after the war, they could go "hamstern" i. e. were mobile enough to go to farmers and try to swap their silver cutlery etc. for potatoes/milk/ham/bacon etc. I wonder what the woman in the picutre paid/swapped for the tube which must have been very vital for her.
A very moving picture of times hopefully bygone for good.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Dear Friend, well said. Your knowledge and fine prose are a boon to this site. Thanks for all your hard work and a blessed festival and good push into 2016, with much good fortune to you and yours.

[ErWeSa]

Dear Friend, well said. Your knowledge and fine prose are a boon to this site. Thanks for all your hard work and a blessed festival and good push into 2016, with much good fortune to you and yours.

Dear Sir,
thank you for your kind words. Ich wünsche Ihnen und den Ihren ebenfalls ein frohes Fest und einen "guten Rutsch" in ein neues Jahr voll Gesundheit und Glück!

[octavian]

Is that what that older lady was doing (perhaps hiding rubber)? i was sitting there looking and gawking at that for awhile myself. FB posts some great pics.

By the way FB, who does your work on restoration? or is that your handy work? If i recall from older posts another expert in the field of SS textiles is renowned at this art form. Cannot recall the his name. But have seen his work.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Dear Sir,
thank you for your kind words. Ich wünsche Ihnen und den Ihren ebenfalls ein frohes Fest und einen "guten Rutsch" in ein neues Jahr voll Gesundheit und Glück!

Lieber Kollege, Ihnen und Ihren Lieben alles Gute, sowie ein gesegnetes Fest und einen guten Rutsch in ein gesundes und erfolgreiches 2016, und auf ein baldiges Wiedersehen.
Ihr, treuer, FB

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Is that what that older lady was doing (perhaps hiding rubber)? i was sitting there looking and gawking at that for awhile myself. FB posts some great pics.

By the way FB, who does your work on restoration? or is that your handy work? If i recall from older posts another expert in the field of SS textiles is renowned at this art form. Cannot recall the his name. But have seen his work.

The images of the black market are an antidote to all the pre 1939 or pre 1941 pictures of Nazi glory and a reminder of where such hysteria and violence all end.

Neither I nor Ben VK restored the cap. It was done by a college friend, and life long collecting chum, who is a great artisan.

He is not in business doing this. Neither am I, in fact.

Happy hats and may your time in the black market be brief.

Thanks to Wolfgang for his wonderful insights into these things.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Then and now.

An historical picture of this kind of cap with this kind of badges. I do not know who these personages are. Smiling at the height of wartime glory.

Short lived.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The hat is not attributed to them, and perhaps someone knows what became of them. ??