Luftwaffe single button early short billed feldmutze

[Bob Lyons]

An early Other Ranks Feldmuetze, that was a pre-war cap manufactured for Signals and Flak personnel. This could be
also a variant of the mountain cap, although there are no air grommets. Interesting full sweat band, which apparently
was reasonably common on these early caps. This one has been upgraded for an officer with the twist silver cord around
the crown.

Bob

[BenVK]

Officer grade Trikot as well Bob, very nice!

[Bob Lyons]

Thanks Ben, my guess is that he would have been a high ranking NCO, who was later commissioned.


Bob

[JasonA]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for posting this! One of the first things I hear from many collectors is that a sweat shield and/or full sweatband is a huge red flag on these types of caps. When these features are seen, the piece is often impugned as a bad cap accordingly. So it's nice to see exceptions to this, and to hear that full sweatbands might have been common on earlier caps. These caps seem to be minefields, and those who have studied them in depth have held their expertise close to the chest (at least in my experience).

Cheers Mate

J-

[Bob Lyons]

Hi Jason

Yes it threw me too when I first encountered the cap, but construction looked good to me, I had to get a bit of advice from some of the more advanced cloth cap guys
on the sweat band, but yes, it appears that the early caps did utilise this on some caps, others used the more well known partial leather sweat band. The cap got a
unanimous thumbs up from the guys that I queried re the sweat band, and since then I have noticed one or two others in books with this as well.

Bob

[BenVK]

Oddly enough, a full length sweatband is the norm in a Heer Bergmuetze but rarely seen in one for the Luftwaffe.
Such anomalies within German uniforms of the period is what makes it such an interesting subject.

[Bob Lyons]

Oddly enough, a full length sweatband is the norm in a Heer Bergmuetze but rarely seen in one for the Luftwaffe.
Such anomalies within German uniforms of the period is what makes it such an interesting subject.

Hi Ben

yeah when I was researching this one, I found more Heer examples with this type of sweatband than I did Luftwaffe ! (photos in books that is)

Cheers

Bob

[JasonA]

Ben - Very interesting, and I agree completely. I see standards on Luftwaffe headgear that is much less common on other branches, and that is indeed part of the fun of collecting.

Full sweatbands seem to be a heated topic on many M.43s and variants, and to an even greater extent, sweat shields. Although I don't know why these factors wouldn't have been present on dress caps for the same reason they were in visors.

Any thoughts/observations on this?

J-