Opinions needed on Wehrmacht Heer - Schirmmütze für Sanitätsoffiziere (visor cap for medical officers)

[Friedrich-Berthold]

My point is that a hat maker was probably as common in the urban cosmos of most German towns as tailors once were, or the tailors in Aenderungschneiderein as still exist today in central Europe. That is, the womanly skills to make these things were generalized, not especially remarkable, though the UM articles make much of the fact that uniform caps required more skill than other hat making. Automobiles were also originally made in handicrafts, too, in fact. Only when Taylor married with Ford to the assembly line emerge and with it the kind of things that constitute our world.
Read the UM articles we have appended. It is all explained, as it is in this book, too, which is an excellent as anything.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This mode of production at Peek and Cloppenburg was copied in the early 20th century from the US. with the application of Taylorism. It was not widely embraced, caused resistance, and was defamed as foreign and un German.

[HPL2008]

That is, the womanly skills to make these things were generalized, not especially remarkable, though the UM articles make much of the fact that uniform caps required more skill than other hat making.

For the benefit of our non-German speaking members, please allow me to add an English translation of the UM article you had included in post # 34, as it also addresses this problem and may be of general interest here:


" A Cologne Uniform Tailor gives account. So overburdened is he with work for the new Cologne garrison that he does not know how to manage it. On the subject of civilian tailors, he has this to say: 'The changeover back to our original trade came to sudden. Due to the fact that Cologne did not have a military garrison anymore, there was no new blood trained in this field. Many civilian tailors, though, are not readily up to this work, for it presents demands of an altogether different nature. Many civilian tailors, for example, are not familiar with the workmanship that goes into the application of the pipings that frame the tunic and go onto the trousers. Uniform collars, tabs, shoulder boards and cuffs are difficult work as well. Cutting a uniform item is entirely different from cutting a loose-fitting and casual civilian suit. The uniform is precisely and tightly fitted to the figure. This requires long experience. The firms that still employ craftsmen from the war years are few.' It's the same old story, and the retraining courses of the DAF [German Labor Front] are alluded to. The uniform tailor in question, who had been a supplier to the Cologne garrison since the Eighties, still recalls the time in which the Berlin uniform tailors - Berlin, as is well known, being the center of uniform tailoring -travelled all the way to the most remote garrisons in East Prussia and Lorraine, to take measurements and undertake fittings. Such power had our Army's reputation that even foreign rulers, generals and diplomats ordered their uniforms from the suppliers to the German Army."

[BenVK]

Ben: I can understand the appealing simplicity of the car maker analogy, I just feel that it can't apply to the German economy of the '30s or the '40s when talking about the manufacture of head wear.

Yes indeed, the analogy can be viewed as simplistic. It can also be viewed in a dozen entirely different ways if you choose to do so.

My interest in the German mutzenindustrie really concerns the huge variety of makers, the different levels of quality of workmanship and materials, the technological advances of production and design elements, the patenting of these new designs and the different styles and unique fingerprints of the individual artisans who made them.

You can find caps that are very average in quality and obviously churned out at a very fast rate on an industrial scale to meet war demands and you can find ones that are meticulously hand stitched plus everything inbetween.

The car anology has merit for me because you see the same various methods of quality and construction, product development and the unique styles of individual makers. It's not so evident nowadays of course but not so long ago, as one example, Britain had many small firms producing cars that were fully hand built or partly hand built, Lotus etc. Each one would have evidence of the skill or lack of it within it's structure, the same as any German hat if you look closely enough.

Also, when you look close enough, certain mutzenmachers obviously designed their products with a distinct design ethos. It might have meant to be robust and hard wearing or lightweight and sporty. I'll take one example to illustrate, Paul Kaps made products very much unlike any other cap I've seen. The materials were always of high quality but not ostentatious, they have a sporty and dashing look to them but are also built to last with exceptional standards of construction. They have radical elements of design incorporated inside the cap, almost performance extras if you like and the branding of the product is understated yet distinct, individual and one that speaks quality but in a modern thinking way.

I could be easily describing a Porsche or Ferrari, no? It takes a bit of imagination to make the connection but for me, the connection is real and tangible.

Likewise, there are hundreds of German hat makers of average quality, production line caps that are akine to your Fords and Volkswagens. Not especially exciting but the demand for uniforms was huge and as mentioned, even though industrialisation was loathed and feared within the traditional circles of German craftsmen and women, there was no other choice and no going back.

A German schirmmutze is a combination of elements, wool, leather, vulcanfibre, laminated card, rayon, cellophane etc etc. Very unlike a tunic for example. Some of those elements were on the cutting edge of design at the time. They also developed unique machines to make them more quickly and efficiently.

I guess that's why I like the car analogy.

[KSH]

Yes indeed, the analogy can be viewed as simplistic. It can also be viewed in a dozen entirely different ways if you choose to do so.

My interest in the German mutzenindustrie really concerns the huge variety of makers, the different levels of quality of workmanship and materials, the technological advances of production and design elements, the patenting of these new designs and the different styles and unique fingerprints of the individual artisans who made them.

You can find caps that are very average in quality and obviously churned out at a very fast rate on an industrial scale to meet war demands and you can find ones that are meticulously hand stitched plus everything inbetween.

The car anology has merit for me because you see the same various methods of quality and construction, product development and the unique styles of individual makers. It's not so evident nowadays of course but not so long ago, as one example, Britain had many small firms producing cars that were fully hand built or partly hand built, Lotus etc. Each one would have evidence of the skill or lack of it within it's structure, the same as any German hat if you look closely enough.

Also, when you look close enough, certain mutzenmachers obviously designed their products with a distinct design ethos. It might have meant to be robust and hard wearing or lightweight and sporty. I'll take one example to illustrate, Paul Kaps made products very much unlike any other cap I've seen. The materials were always of high quality but not ostentatious, they have a sporty and dashing look to them but are also built to last with exceptional standards of construction. They have radical elements of design incorporated inside the cap, almost performance extras if you like and the branding of the product is understated yet distinct, individual and one that speaks quality but in a modern thinking way.

I could be easily describing a Porsche or Ferrari, no? It takes a bit of imagination to make the connection but for me, the connection is real and tangible.

Likewise, there are hundreds of German hat makers of average quality, production line caps that are akine to your Fords and Volkswagens. Not especially exciting but the demand for uniforms was huge and as mentioned, even though industrialisation was loathed and feared within the traditional circles of German craftsmen and women, there was no other choice and no going back.

All good points you make here, Ben. When you put it like that I have to say that the car analogy does have its merits, as long as we stay aware of its inherent shortcomings (all analogies will because of what they are always have strengths and weaknesses at the same time). You argue your case well my friend

- Kenneth

[BenVK]

When you put it like that I have to say that the car analogy does have its merits, as long as we stay aware of its inherent shortcomings..

Very true but really, it's just a personal thing that I can connect to and not meant to be something of educational merit.

[KSH]

Very true but really, it's just a personal thing that I can connect to and not meant to be something of educational merit.

I understand perfectly

Just a question about the cap originally in question above: I think the quality and workmanship of the cap is stunning overall. But as you said "the pleating isn't the best", and the work under the sweatband is not so aesthetically pleasing either. I find that interesting, because it seems to me that the maker of this cap surely had the skill to finish up all the "invisible" parts of the cap in a very beautiful way if he wanted to. Might this be a request from the officer who ordered it, to make it cheaper on himself? It makes sense to me that he would want all visible parts of the cap to be of very good quality (as I think they are), but perhaps wanted the cap maker to "go easy" on the aesthetics under the sweatband to save some money, because no-one is really going to see that ever anyway.

I'd love to get your 2 cents on this Ben

- Kenneth

[BenVK]

Your hat is slightly strange due to the fact that it isn't maker marked and that some elements are nicely constructed and others not so. I know that FB and others disapprove of my rather surgical and precision observations on individual hats when the bigger picture is more interesting but there you go..

What you have to remember is that rarely did one person make an entire hat. It usualy passed through half a dozen different hands before completion. The pleats of the lining of this example have been created in a rather sloppy fashion in my opinion. That's based on having looked at hundreds of hats. Why that is, I have no idea but I'm sure has nothing to do with cost cutting or anything of the sorts you allude to in your post above.

Had it been maker marked, then we would have the ability to compare with other examples and judge whether the workmanship of this particular example was the norm or not.

[KSH]

Your hat is slightly strange due to the fact that it isn't maker marked and that some elements are nicely constructed and others not so. I know that FB and others disapprove of my rather surgical and precision observations on individual hats when the bigger picture is more interesting but there you go..

What you have to remember is that rarely did one person make an entire hat. It usualy passed through half a dozen different hands before completion. The pleats of the lining of this example have been created in a rather sloppy fashion in my opinion. That's based on having looked at hundreds of hats. Why that is, I have no idea but I'm sure has nothing to do with cost cutting or anything of the sorts you allude to in your post above.

I was just doing some uninformed speculating You, FB, stonemint and many others here are in a different league than me, Ben, when it comes to Schirmmützen! Thank you for educating me

- Kenneth

[BenVK]

We all have so much more still to learn. I envy those who can read German as all the answers are obtainable if you know where to look.

A pleasue my friend, goodnight and look forward to our next conversation.