colored piping on cap, 1943...Sturbannfuehrer Bochmann

[N.C. Wyeth]

Merry christmas Brad!
One thing is for sure though, I could never afford to buy it back again.

Ben,

Merry Christmas to you as well (albeit belated) . . . that cap has always remained as one of the few untold items on my "wish I had at least once in my Lifetime" list (my own personal "Bucket-List you might say . . .). Although I am sure that neither of us could ever afford an individual buy-back, it sure would be nice to know where it ended up - just in case one of us lands a big win through the "Irish Sweepstakes" (you being an "Englander" and all, that would be something in it's own right!) . . . I can see the outcome now - through our mutual pact of secrecy, when the Sweepstakes payout is finally achieved, the winner get's the KZ cap, and the runner-up (never a loser!) get's a sweet Kleiderklasse cap for General Officer! A real "win-win" all the way around! The photographs would be a true Visa "priceless" moment, to say the least . . .

O.K. - time to back off of the Paulaner again . . .

Take care over there . . . and get working on that New Years Resolution!

Brad

[texasuberalles]

I'll opine that most of the period photos that we review so closely are in black and white (not color) and were taken by individuals with photographic skills all the way from the best to the worst and under conditions all the way from controlled studios to those taken with cheap instruments and under hasty (combat and field) conditions. (I seem to recall one of J. Pieper at the crossroads in the Ardennes offensive wherein he appears to be wearing a color piped cap or has my memory again failed me?)

Considering the above added to the deterioration of the images on top of our viewing the images over the Internet and digital photographic issues I suspect some of the obviously (apparently) piped SS visors actually are of Whermacht visors that were worn as an expedient to 'doing without' the 'official' black colored central band.

The differences in hues between the band of the cap and the color of the wearers' collar can often be chalked up to differences in shades of green and NOT just the difference between green and black. Common sense dictates it must have happened, the only question in my mind is how often........

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I am glad that the colleague from Texas has joined us here. His insights are always judicious and reasoned. In this case, what he says also makes about the use of army caps makes perfect sense.
Happy holidays to all.

[BenVK]

Hope eveyone had a good christmas? Personnaly, I never want to see a turkey again.

I found this lovely portrait for sale today. £180 is a bit steep for me though.

[texasuberalles]

I suspect some of the obviously (apparently) piped SS visors actually are of Whermacht visors that were worn as an expedient to 'doing without' the 'official' black colored central band.

I'll buttress my above comment by stating the 'almost' obvious which is highlighted by the above picture with the sleeve eagle on the visor - all would agree that such happened constantly but is surely 'non-reg'.

PLUS, at least in the instance of panzer truppen, who are wearing green topped visor caps (because they didn't wear black topped visor caps) the thought that "Gee, I can't wear a green topped 'piped' ((other than white)) visor since it dosent't have a black capband mentality" would fail the reasonableness test.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Militaria Verlag Wien book on the Reichswehr has a long list of what were tolerated variations from dress regulations. That is, the manner in which soldiers habitually deviated from what was prescribed by dint of fashion, conceit, whatever. In highly regulated societies with a plethora of orders there existed something in German called: Eigensinn, which cannot be translated very well here. Another word you can look up is : Eigenmaechtigkeiten, but Eigensinn is more to our point here. I shall let someone else translate, and not with the nifty machine. The point being that the people we are looking at were not of our age, with our too many freedoms, our much conformity in such freedom, and our seemingly unlimited choices. All of this inquiry, moreover, is to put a nice wooden stake through the heart of dumb s!!!t collector dogma that operates without restraint on other websites at the expense of historical truth especially as concerns Waffenfarbe on caps in the SS as well as many other hobby horses known to us here.

Merry new year.

[d'alquen]

Ben,
Thank you for posting the portrait of the Panzer NCO. At the risk of sounding overly fastidious, one small detail I find quite intriguing is that the National eagle has been sewn on off-centre. I wonder if it was just easier to avoid the seam?
D.

[BenVK]

It's an extremely interesting hat. Can you imagine the swathe of negative comments it would receive if it ever appeared nowadays? The application of the eagle would never be accepted by the masses as original. I can only assume that this stylish young gentleman had strong ideas on how his uniform should look and like many others, just ignored the regs. Period photos are full of these anomalies. The question isn't why these garments were made/modified/worn this way, the question is why not many have survived to this day. Maybe the answer is related to the phenomena that is the collecting of "textbook" items. How many unique things have been altered post war to fit more neatly into this bracket and therefore become more marketable? quite a few I would wager. That eagle is a good example, it would have been taken off in a heartbeat and another "textbook" one applied in it's place. What saddens me is that some accept it as common practice. I talked to a dealer face to face one time who freely admitted changing the untouched earlier pattern insignia on a black ss nco visor with the later, more desirable pattern just to make it more saleable. You can't change these guys attitude, it's all about the money for them, all you can do is try and purchase the items before they get their hands on them.
Back to this particular cap and the one that started this thread. Notice how these guys wanted the top covers of their visors steamed into a shape that bent over to one side. I find this particularly fascinating and have never read any theories of why that was. Prehaps someone in touch still with vets can ask the question? It seems that the younger soldiers really picked up on this fashion as this other photo would suggest. Sorry about the ring on the photo, it's the only copy I have in the database.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Panzer soldier's shirt is also not exactly what collectors consider text book, either, but, actually I am fairly confident that in the midst of war and the rationing of textiles, then people wore such odd shirts.

Thank you, dear Ben, for your condemnation of text book ism as well as the tendency by some vandals to violate the actual remnants of the past to fit the preconceived notions of a handful of people who dictate to us how we should think and what we should do. The phrase "text book" is silly.

Vorschriftsmaessig is appropriate, but this term too changed meaning over time, and then, surely lost all meaning in the midst of the war.

Thank you for the nice images and the insightful commentary.

As to the cap without cap spring look, I think you can examine the Bundesarchiv on line files of German life in its variety to see that people who wore peaked caps of all kinds tended to make them look worn and squished, probably as a an expression of individuality and rejection of the wired up, trussed up, closed collar discipline and regulation that was so present in life. This is the meaning of Eigensinn, as I described it above. Or look at the pictures of German movies stars of the era in You Tube for your clues as to fashion.

As one who spends a lot of time with NATO soldiers in berets of various kinds, there is today the tendency to make the beret look as if it is 200 years old and also to make the thing look as if it were two sizes two small, which always irritates me, actually. The worn out, small beret is the modern day equivalent of this peaked cap without spring that is squished back with a broken Muetzensteg.

[BenVK]

Back to coloured waffenfarbe. This photo speaks volumns. From memory, I think these guys were from Landstorm Nederland in a POW camp in late 45, early 46.