Problem number one for me is that the dienstdolch was not a side weapon but used for parades. Where in the hell in August 1944 Warsaw, german army retreating would one find someone walking around with the SA dagger ? Germans were at high alert, not in parade mode.
In 1991 in Warsaw,and other Polish cities most sellers at the flea markets called the SA/SS daggers "noz szturmowy" or a assault knife, so most people in Poland (including myself earlier) believed that these were fighting knives.
Veterans often, many years later made things, spruced things up, truth being that not very many genuine weapons had survived the Uprising and to add to that after 1945 no one was allowed to keep anything that was WW2 german.
I guess we can only speculate today as to how "Mewa" actually acquired the dagger, maybe he just found it in one of the one of the buildings in Warsaw that the Kilinski battalion fighters forced the German's out of during the early days of the insurgency rather than killing someone wearing it and picking up the dagger as a trophy, who can say.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
[QUOTE=4thskorpion;BTW, the Red Army was not unstoppable, it stopped dead in its tracks in the Praga district of Warsaw on the East bank of the Vistula where it watched and waited for the German forces to finally crush the Polish rebellion on the other side of the river at the beginning of October 1944. It was not until after the Germans had emptied the city of all of the surviving Varsovians, deported them to POW camps or civilian forced labour camps, then demolished the city block by block that the Red Army decided it was safe to gear up again, cross to the West bank of destroyed and emptied Warsaw and liberate the few that remained in hiding in the city on 17 January 1945.[/QUOTE]
The reference to "unstoppable" was to the combat engagements it was involved in-not a voluntary halt. The Red Army did, of course, experience setbacks in the field, but it ultimately continued on to occupy Berlin...
William
"Much that once was, is lost. For none now live who remember it."
Maybe, it is a parade dagger, not really to be used as a weapon. However the description said it was captured during attack on PASTa building. The german mixed group that occupied it had abot 150 soldiers of different formations, SS, Police, army, some eastern formations. PASTa was a german stronghold, fortified and question begs of why would anyone bring that dagger with them to the building, and for what purpose ?
If someone had the time to put in the Polish eagle so carefully and so well in the handle, should they not have time to take out the german eagle ? It is not hard to do so.....
It doesn't make sense to me either, Itak...it wouldn't be the 1st time nonsense items made their way into a respectable museum...People always seem to look at an item and figure in their minds that if it is in a museum, it must be unimpeachable genuine, but this is not always the case.
William
"Much that once was, is lost. For none now live who remember it."
Hi Stefan..thank you for keeping this on track...I am almost certain this very dagger as specified was not in Warsaw..during the allotted time frame. William came close in what I was looking at. Im trying to get others to dig into the where abouts without giving it all away at once and the plot would be gone..so i will add a few more clues .
This maker which i can identify as 1 of 3 Suhl makers because of the crossguard step and the wide side panels on the grip. I will say Wilhelm Kober..None the less with early Sa daggers which this one is..the came with Gruppe marks designating the SA districts they went to. Keep in mind that Germany still had control over its people and all organizations...............enough said...below are the 3 makers and SA gruppes these makers sent daggers to. match them to the map also and see if it is possible that this very dagger could of made it that far east. I have more later to let loose. Lets focus on this part first.
Haenel Gruppe marks- Mi; Ns; Sa; Th
Wilhelm Kober Gruppe marks- He; Sa; Th
Sauer Gruppe marks- BO; Fr; Mi; Sa; Wf
below is the link to the Gruppe marks thread and also included is a side by side photo of a most commonly seen dagger grip panel on the bottom of the photo compared to the wide panel seen on a Kober viewed at the top. The march continues........................ SA Gruppe marks known to Dagger Producers and Manufacturers
It is not the size of a Collection in History that matters......Its the size of your Passion for it!! - Larry C
One never knows what tree roots push to the surface of what laid buried before the tree was planted - Larry C
“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” - Winston Churchill
Why take out the German eagle on a trophy item? I like the symbolism of placing the Polish eagle over the top of the German eagle...a symbolic representation of Polish victory
On 6 August Kilinski battalion attacked and took control of a prison building on ul. Daniłowiczowska the PASTa building wasn't captured by the battalion until August 20? I can't see the reference to PASTa in the caption under the dagger?
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
So is one hypothesis that the SA dagger in question was made by Wilhelm Kober of Suhl with Gruppe marks- He(?) Sa(chsen); Th(üringen) and therefore most definitely not the occupied General Government and Warsaw, thus "Mewa" could not have "captured" this particular SA honour or parade dagger in Warsaw in 1944!
Another question is what would a parade dagger be doing in Warsaw 1944 rather than a combat dagger presumably on the basis that the German's did not hold military dress parades in occupied Warsaw?
Another is the application of the Polish eagle to the grip and whether there would have been any free time to apply it given the desperate fighting going on? There was enough free time for numerous young fighters to stop fighting to hold their own wedding services, sit around and play music, write poetry etc but I personally think the Polish eagle would have likely been applied post-war as well as the tooled date etc on the grip. Caches of German weapons were hidden away by Poles during and after WWII to be used in future anti-communist resistance battles but keeping them of course posed grave risks.
I too am curious about the original photo in post no. 1, in which the dagger is not in a display cabinet but on a soiled looking ragged edged cloth? Maybe it was taken when the Rising Museum was calling for artifacts to be donated by Varsovians to the museum collections. I do remember seeing photos of groups of people donating items on tables in the Warsaw media so this could explain the context of the original image, but then again maybe not
Last edited by StefanM; 11-10-2013 at 01:37 PM.
I collect, therefore I am.
Nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter.
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- Larry C
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