An Unexciting Schirmmütze

[don_kihotis7]

Nice caps guys.
Thanks for showing

[S.Vestae]

nice cap

[all1knew]

Hello there,

I had a uniform display that could have used a visor like this!

Beautiful piece.

William Kramer

[ObKrieger]

I don't see why there is a lack of appeal for these, or why it is an unexciting cap. I find them attractive and I would take one any day.

[stonemint]

I don't see why there is a lack of appeal for these, or why it is an unexciting cap. I find them attractive and I would take one any day.

Ob, it is basically because everyone likes the "glamor pipes"--ie, the combat arms--Pz Pink, GS carmine, yellow Kav, etc. Most of the guys that wore these hats were simple paper-pushers.

[ObKrieger]

Ob, it is basically because everyone likes the "glamor pipes"--ie, the combat arms--Pz Pink, GS carmine, yellow Kav, etc. Most of the guys that wore these hats were simple paper-pushers.

In my opinion, the paper-pushers were just as, if not more important to the Nazi war machine than the soldiers in the field. When I hold the cap of a soldier, I feel as if it belonged to a soldier. Paper-pusher caps make me stop and think, 'Wow, the man who owned this was an essential part of war machine. He kept things running in the offices of Germany.'

That alone if enough to make me really want one of these caps.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The category paper pusher is problematic for anyone with some experience of military life. Armies in 19th and 20th century were, as my friend from Erie, PA, points out, large bureaucratic organizations. Warfare in the age of Total War required the militarization of civilian professions into the ranks of the Wehrmacht, to include, military justice as well as weapons production and many other facets quite central to the reality of the III. Reich at war. There is too easy a distinction to be made between combat arms and combat service support, whereas in reality, the difference between the front and the rear became moot in the course of the war.
Collector group think assigns magic meaning to incidental things, often with no knowledge of German history, the development of its armed forces, or the reality of the war in its more desperate time. It may also have been that these very rear area people were finally pressed into the Volksturm, and fought a much more bitter battle than some armor officer who had the luck to be in Norway in the final phases of the war.

Collector group think usually gets the truth seriously wrong, not the least for those with no military experience themselves.


The great ballyhoo makers of military bravery and service are those who have never endured the rigors of service, and see it all as a life style or some form of haute couture.

Many here have military experience, to be sure. But many do not....

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Carmine was also the Waffenfarbe for the veterinary branch, an essential aspect of the army which relied to a high degree on traditional horsepower, granted the insufficient degree of motorization.

[stonemint]

Excellent points (as usual!) F-B.

[stonemint]

My primary area of interest is not who wore the cap, or what organisation it represents, but who and what went into making the hat. As I have stated before, I think a serious argument can be made in support of my claim that the headgear produced between 1933-45 was the most aesthetically pleasing headgear of any country, any era. Each part of a TR hat means something, whether it be the wool body, the various rings (or lack thereof) of piping; the visor; the band material/color; the cords/strap; the visor, and (of course) the insignia. Then there are the "extras" such as the higher grades of wool (or even silk); the composition of the insignia (ie, bare aluminum/polished/frosted/bullion); the amount of padding; and heighth of the peak and the shape of the crown.

This is in stark contrast to the hat of the US Army Officer corps, which were basically the same across the board (and yes, I have a few of those, too).
Unfortunately, the art of making a visor basically died in 1945. After that we are subjected to plastic visors, vinyl sweatbands, polyester bodies, glued-on insignia and (my personal pet peeve) sta-brite insignia.
I like my hats minty simply because that is the way they looked when they left the Muetzenmacherei, and in this condition they remain a testament to an artisanship that will never be seen again.