hitler youth or teen soldier helmet???

[CMc]

Of course, even now there's a great variance in heights, but as far as I was aware people are on the whole taller now than in previous generations. Large people have always existed of course, and it tends to run in families, but as has been said a lot of people growing up all over Europe between the wars, particularly in the more deprived urban areas, would've had a very poor diet which would've resulted in very little growth.

For examples of this, George Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Pier', published just before he set of to fight in the Spanish Civil War, looked at urban poverty in Northern England during the mid 1930s. Amongst the alarming things he noted were severe undernourishment, terrible housing, and almost non-existant healthcare, all of which contributed to a poor standard of physical and mental health. One aspect of this is what we're talking about here, that many of them would be relatively short and of thin build.

Many of the young men Orwell met in Northern England during his travels in the 1930s would have went on to serve their country in the Second World War, (although there would be plenty of young working class men not taken by the military, either due to poor physical or mental health as discussed, or because their work was in a reserved occupation which they couldn't be released from, such as mining, shipbuilding, war-related production etc. As far as I know I have ancestors in both of those groups, as well as ones who did join up, oddly enough if you include relatives on both my Mum and Dad's side I seem to have ancestors in the Army, Navy and the RAF, sort of a complete set!) and of course some of those men would've been quite small because of their childhood in deprived areas.

To give another example of this, the American journalist William L Shirer, in his book 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', notes that he was impressed when, as a neutral U.S. journalist recording the events of the German invasion of the Low Countries and France, he saw healthy German soliders of a good height and build, which he put down to a healthy outdoors upbringing and good diet, compared to British troops he saw, many of whom were young working class men like the ones I mentioned previously, and who shocked Shirer by their relatively poor health and build, as well as their relatively poor morale in his eyes. Of course, he wasn't looking at every man in those armies, and there did exist both small German soldiers, many of them themselves affected by an upbringing in deprived urban areas in the 1930s, and also fit, healthy British soldiers.

The reason why there are fewer such small people in the developed World now is of course that our diet is very different. In actual fact poverty does still exist in the modern Western world, as does poor diet, particularly amongst the lower-paid members of the working class, the unemployed etc, but in many cases our diet is poor in the opposite direction, too much of food that is rich in fat, sugar, salt etc, and not enough of other foods, whereas in the 1930s in many urban, working class homes of Europe and North America, the food eaten by the family would now be considered inadequate in volume, let alone nutritional value.

[davejb]

Hey guys, although i find all this dietry info interesting, i think capt harrys original thread has been somewhat hijacked, he wanted opinions on the helmet re decals and overall look, does anyone else have an opinion.

[CMc]

To try and bring my point back into a military history realm, but still on topic with regard to heights, one famous soldier who would now be considered really quite small was T.E. Lawrence, the famous Lawrence of Arabia, who was if I remember correctly 5 feet 4 inches. Even at the time his small height and thin build was noted by some (although I've heard it theorised, with how much evidence I'm not sure, that he may have had unusually low levels of male hormones in his youth, which would explain the historically documented facts of his small stature, relatively unmuscular build, his low levels of facial hair, near non-existant sex drive and quite feminine voice.)

By comparison, Lawrence's friend and colleague in Egypt, and at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Richard Meinertzhagen, (who would later become known as an ornithologist and autobiographer, but who's works were more recently revealed by serious scrutiny to be based on astounding levels of plagarism, fabrication and outright fantasy!) was well over 6 foot 4 inches tall, and said to be of impressive build and physical fitness.

[lach470]

Sorry - back to the helmet: real shell.......not so real decals.

Rob

[tymclaren]

I'm not sure about the paint or decals with that shell, doesn't look good to me.

[LAS VEGAS]

The size 60 helmets where acording to some specially made for the hitler youth.surely this must be true as they woul;dnt have fitted an adult head?

[Adrian Stevenson]

No helmets were ever made especially for the HJ.

Cheers, Ade

[Robert Donnell]

The shell might have some value because it is a rare size 60.

[Walkwolf]

Helmets were made to simply accommodate heads of every size then,
both large and small...................


And I thought my Luft 'ET62' was tiny ! !





Regards,




Steve.