Hi Maris,
The drum you have found is 'Feldkabel'. It would have consisted of two cables of copper cored, galvanized steel armoured cable that was rubber coated. Each cable was 400m long, the whole drum would have weighed 45kg when full.
The cables were low loop resistance communications wires with a voice range of up to 50kms. The drums were of different sizes and slightly different design depending on what sort of cables (Comms or power) were wound on them. The two separate cable 'runners' in the centre of the spool show that yours is for telephone cable.
Some, like yours, would have been mounted on trolleys,vehicles, sleds or even pulled by hand on the tyres that are on the drum.Smaller drums were even mounted as backpacks. I've included a few pic's to show the different types of drums and how they were used.
Hope this answers your question, at least in part!
Regards, Ned.
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