Luftwaffe Officers schirmutze : Erel Privat

[don_kihotis7]

The visor that was used to start this thread is made of wool. This visor i attach of what material is made?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The officer's cap is of a superior kind of tricot, i.e. Strichgarn, and the enlisted, issued piece you enclose is also tricot, Strichgarn, but of a lower quality typical of these issue caps. The difference is obvious when you examine both in real life.

PS While I do not want to argue with the owner, I can plainly see that the piece in the first illustrations is a high quality Strichgarn, in contrast to doeskin, which lacks the Strichgarn feature and has a soft, fluffy hand.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Tricot fabric as used in an SS uniform of middling quality.

The cloth in a cap would be of lighter weight than this tunic tricot.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This textile, illustrated above, is a luxurious, soft Strichgarn, i.e. Trikot as used in officer's uniforms or extra uniforms for other ranks.

A Luftwaffe officer's cap could well be made in a not dissimilar textile, but of the weight employed in headwear. It could also be made of doeskin, as well as Eskimo or Dueffel (which cost 1 RM more...) and even silk, in certain cases, though I have never seen a silken Lw cap, but such existed in the SS and the army. Finally, there existed 'Tuch' or 'Einheitstuch,' in Lw enlisted caps, too, as well as officer caps, I guess, which was a woolen textile without the Strichgarn weave.

A colleague of mine bought a uniform textile sample book from a textile firm in the early 1970s, with swatches of cloth, in which the weight of textiles is very obvious. Stezelberger had one of these for sale at some point in the past several years.

The modern copies of said textiles are almost always very deficient in the extreme, if you know you way around this aspect of the past.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I can describe all of this til I fall over from exhaustion, but the novice collector has actually to see the things with eyes, noes, ears, fingers, and other appendages to get a real sense of something that cannot be described by a 3d party via the magic screen. Es ist halt so....

[don_kihotis7]

This tunic is made of the tricot you have mentioned? I have also found this visor that matches but it's made from wool. maybe because it's not an officers visor whilst the tunic is for officers?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The cap is Einheitstuch of the grade used in issue other ranks and NCO caps, while the tunic is similar to the Strichgarn, Trikot I illustrated with my SS pieces. The tunic was likely made by a tailor, while the cap was issued to someone without a clothing allowance. The two pieces are Luftwaffe signals. The officer's tunic is for a Hautpmann. The tunic would have taken the first cap, i.e. officer's cap in this thread. These are two nice pieces. I like Luftwaffe uniforms very much and used to collect the caps in a desultory way and then sold them all. I had a marvelous 1935 ish officer's cap with a wonderful Lackleder peak, which a noted dealer than described to me as being a fake. Some dealer. Some cap. I wish I still had it.
I am not sure where you can go on Cyprus to find militaria of this kind in large enough numbers to see real pieces, but maybe you can do so somewhere else in so. Europe. I am out of my depth. I tend to keep above the Brenner, but I did go to Istanbul this past spring...

Good luck with your collecting. Before you take the plunge, you should look at an existing, advanced collection to get the literal feel of this material...our electric pictures are misleading, and while I am happy to help you and feel it an honor, it is still a half way measure.

Does someone have an idea where this stuff is had nearby? On Crete, for instance?

Also, and finally, I think in real life, these things did not match. That is, you can see many period color pictures, where the cap textile does not match the tunic textile at all. The collector fetish for "matching" has little to do with reality. Especially when rationing set in, then one was happy to have any textile at all...and the rationing of these things began sooner than many beginning collectors think. as we shall presently find again with our oil, lithium, rare earth and such ho ha.

[don_kihotis7]

In Cyprus i believe there are not antique shops which sell militaria. Or at least to the best of my knowledge. You are very well informed on these stuff Friedrich. I'm jealous I wish i had the time to study about all these that i am fond of. This orange piping is for Luftwaffe signal men?

[BenVK]

I freely admitt to being slightly in love with FB!

You could search through a hundred threads on tens of forums but never hear a better or more accurate explaination of the woollen cloths used during the period. Plus, described in the correct German language terms of the period and not some made up collectors language!

We are truly lucky to have him spend time here.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Please do not be jealous. There is no reason. The piping for Luftwaffe signals carries the designation copper brown, i.e. Kupferbraun. The lexicon of colors in German and Austrian military piping is poetic and also poorly transmitted via the internet. The number of greens and reds is enough to make one cry, but then for the contemporaries it was not easy either. Confusion was the norm, but also great effort went in to getting it right as is today the case with Apple hardware and so called "apps" which leave me all quite cold as in a corpse.

You need to find some museum in so. Europe to look at real regalia at close range. There is no way around same.