Muetzenfabrik

[stonemint]

F-B, you did make a point that I had only obliquely considered, and that is the presence of the Guild system in Germany prior to the war. As we know, it is an inefficient system in terms of mass-production, but there was obvious resistance to doing away with it, even in spite of economic needs, due to an almost anti-capitalist reaction, as well as an anti-communist one as well.

It would also have been much more logical to centralize the manufacture of hats among a few (very large) makers and churn them out on an assembly line, a la Herr Ford. However, as we know, this system of doling out contracts to players both large and small, and in towns both large and small, kept employment high across the Reich, with the result being continued support of the Party, as well as a dependance on it.

Also, the "Aryanization" of the industry is also apparent in these articles. ( I was surprised when I saw on a hat a few years ago a phrase something to the effect "the product of aryan hand-work.") I would be curious to know the amount of Jewish haberdashers before 1933. With tailors, you will occasionally see a name such as "Otto Wagner, formerly Max Roth", the meaning of which is instantly obvious.

There are an equally large # of Imperial-era haberdashers as during the Third Reich, but most did not seem to survive past
1918.

In any event, a subject for another doctoral thesis....

[Friedrich-Berthold]

F-B, you did make a point that I had only obliquely considered, and that is the presence of the Guild system in Germany prior to the war. As we know, it is an inefficient system in terms of mass-production, but there was obvious resistance to doing away with it, even in spite of economic needs, due to an almost anti-capitalist reaction, as well as an anti-communist one as well.

It would also have been much more logical to centralize the manufacture of hats among a few (very large) makers and churn them out on an assembly line, a la Herr Ford. However, as we know, this system of doling out contracts to players both large and small, and in towns both large and small, kept employment high across the Reich, with the result being continued support of the Party, as well as a dependance on it.

Also, the "Aryanization" of the industry is also apparent in these articles. ( I was surprised when I saw on a hat a few years ago a phrase something to the effect "the product of aryan hand-work.") I would be curious to know the amount of Jewish haberdashers before 1933. With tailors, you will occasionally see a name such as "Otto Wagner, formerly Max Roth", the meaning of which is instantly obvious.

There are an equally large # of Imperial-era haberdashers as during the Third Reich, but most did not seem to survive past
1918.

In any event, a subject for another doctoral thesis....

Dear Chris, as regards your first point, I will give you some titles to read in English generally on German economic history in the 20th century in which all of this unfolds. The Nazis championed the guild system against what was seen as American and Jewish capitalism of the inter war period. Full employment was the central goal of the regime, as well as racial purification, eradication of democracy, territorial expansion, and modernization. But the latter was to be done differently than in the western countries, while nonetheless using them as a measure of progress: i.e. motorization.

What is obvious here is that those Nazi cap maker figures, i.e. Hoffman, and Wagner, for instance, want to keep the business for themselves as much in the cartel system as that of the guilds, and control prices and divvy up the market. That is manifest in all of this, while at the same time, deal with the regulation worked by the Nazis, who were not really free marketeers either.

The work of Tooze has recently appeared on Nazi economic policy, and you should read it.


Also, what is plain from my couple of weeks of reading these articles is the cap business was no great shakes in the Weimar Republic. That is, there was no there, there prior to the Nazis what with the depression and no real emphasis on uniforms. These articles make clear that the uniform fad was ushered in by the Nazis. The overall trend of the war economy was towards centralization, but even today, the German economy is organized around the Mittelstand, i.e. small to medium sized firms.

Finally, the ethnic cleansing of the textile branch is well treated in other books and things, if you are interested. Such was especially the case in Berlin, which had a large Jewish population and a large fraction of figures and personages in the trade, especially in the area of Alexanderplatz.

I am glad you find this interesting. It is more compelling than crimps and prongs on some dorky badges.

With the wartime articles in UM, the emphasis shifts to orders and decorations.

I should include more images of uniforms, but I focused on these somewhat obscure, but revealing things.

The SS is seldom mentioned in any of this, and there nearly no illustrations of its regalia whatsoever.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

As promised, a point of departure to reflect about all the themes here....there is much more where this came from, in fact.

[Frog]

I am off this forum as of Sunday for a trip to the UK, and will return with my copy of Der Schneidermeister and anything else I can find.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

schoene Reise do we wish you.

[Frog]

Now have this Der Schneidermeister volume in hand.

It is actually a book, some 265 p., and does not seem to be a periodic publication.

The cover:

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Bruce, what secrets does this contain?

I love the cover alone, with it's Art Nouveau insprired design. When does this one date from?

Cheers, Ade.

[Frog]

And the title page:

[Frog]

Ade -

There is no date I can see, at least in Arabic numerals.

This quite lengthly volume is filled with different aspects of the male torso -

[Frog]

And -