Dienstmütze, Seide, schwarz, für Führer bis Standartenführer

[DrCMH]

Attachment 929767Attachment 929766And granted that the man was a Saxon, he would have ended up in February 1949 in what was soon to be the DDR.

I wonder if there is any trace of him there...?

Would be worth examining.....and wondering if he ended up in the DDR, how did the cap survive...?

I do think about the fate of these people often. The Brubacher Mantel that belonged to Bob, I had a family member reach out to me requesting any pictures I may have had of him in his file. His survival was short after the war, shot dead by a French soldier in front of his home. He was later exculpated by the military after his death.

The caps survival would surely be an interesting story. I will have to ask Peter how he came to own it. It has been a part of his collection for some time. It now will be my turn to care for it and I hope to ensure its survival for a long time coming...

[DrCMH]

Some further contrasts of wool and silk textiles:

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Very nice thank you. I do not think that Jenkins would know about the Ernst Heinrich man's fate after the war...

Heinrich could well have left Saxony for the west, but would he have taken his cap with him?

It does not matter, The cap is real. If the cap was found in the ex DDR, that is also interesting, as such a thing is not impossible.

Jenkins went to all the German shows and has contacts with a demimonde into which you and I cannot venture.

You would have to look deeper for it, but it would be worth it.

Remarkable that someone connected with the family of the SS doctor wrote to you. The personnel file is hardly the whole story.

There is so much more out there....

[DrCMH]

Thanks for the further documents. You have his Rw rating officer giving him the upcheck for his time in the Rw as enabling him to find a job in civil service, which was
normal for NCOs, which this man had been. And if he had been a career NCO in the 100,000 man army, he had to have been pretty good. The standards then were
quite high and the demands extreme, what with the strictures of Versailles and Seeckt's concept of a cadre army. Saxony was its own realm in the Rw, too, his garrisons I know fairly well.

Hence, logical was the man's move to the Allgem. SS (which was not called such in 1931) and then the shift to the SSVT in 1935.
To be sure, he was not a Junkerschule graduate and then poster child Waffen SS darling celebrated by the regime and then by collectors to the nth degree, he was a rear echelon man, combat service support, disdained by some but essential to all. His career is very interesting and the documentation is for the person. Often the researchers, such as they, do not get the right case, granted how common names lead to confusion.
His signature does surely match the name tag.

The military evaluations in the old army are always a pleasure to read if one is familiar with such things in a contemporary setting.
The clarity of old military German is also pleasing, something which is now lost forever in the jargon that befouls all leadership and management in
the 21st century.

And, this man's contract with the SSVT was to have ended in early 1 9 4 9......



Here is a picture of 1 9 4 9, and not as Heini H. imagined it, but as this generation of the unbound and their regime of power and violence ended.

Thank you, FB. An expert assessment and poetic narrative of the above documents that should cause any reader to stop and reflect concerning times of clarity and civility gone by and the rapid rise and violent end of times marked by certain brutality and the "banality of evil". The Germany of 1949 was surely nothing these people imagined in the years prior to and during the heyday of the Third Reich.

I can not express enough how much I appreciate your guidance in my interpretation of these documents.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thank you, FB. A expert assessment and poetic narrative of the above documents that should cause any reader to stop and reflect concerning times of clarity and civility gone by and the rapid rise and violent end of times marked by certain brutality and the "banality of evil". The Germany of 1949 was surely nothing these people imagined in the years prior to and during the heyday of the Third Reich.

I can not express enough how much I appreciate your guidance in my interpretation of these documents.

You are very welcome. It is entirely my pleasure. Earlier times had more insight into the essence of our lives. We fool ourselves with empty dreams of power and omnipotence.

What you see here has a lot to say about some fundamental issues of fate and power, and far more than the black hat with the skull this man wore for awhile on his head when things seemed to be at their peak.

no pun intended. I own a lot of this stuff, as you know, and it enables to think with more clarity about the past and its meaning.

I knew a lot of these people, of course, in various ways, and I learned from them directly.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Much nicer to have a thread like this than the silly ones about fake caps.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The other piece with Mr. E. H. here is that he might have known many of the answers that plague us with the Uniformkunde game, because he was more of an administrator and Etappenwesen
man, whereby knowledge of supply and uniforms would have been part of his expertise. His enduring head dress and these records hint at what he might have
known, had we asked him questions.....

[HPL2008]

Friedrich-Berthold has already pointed out and commented on many interesting aspects of these documents. Let me just add a few random thoughts to his observations:

Heinrich is also one of the generation of the unbound, i.e. too young to have fought in the war, but then swept up in the civil war aftermath.

German-speaking readers who want to get a good glimpse into the lives and mindset of these young men should read Ernst von Salomon's autobiographical novel "Die Geächteten".
One may not condone his and his comrade's political and philosophical views expressed therein, but it certainly helps to understand them. Also, there is no denying that it is a quite a gripping read.

And if he had been a career NCO in the 100,000 man army, he had to have been pretty good. The standards then were quite high and the demands extreme, what with the strictures of Versailles and Seeckt's concept of a cadre army.

It is interesting to note that its small size was actually good for the Reichswehr's quality in a roundabout way.
An excess of applicants vs. vacancies meant that the recruiters could afford to pick the best men; a minimum service term of 12 years ensured that at any given time, there were plenty of experienced men around and the fact that all of its personnel were long-serving volunteers or lifers plus the natural competitiveness resulting from the very limited possibilities for promotion naturally resulted in a highly motivated force.
The rapid build-up of the 100,000-men army to the massive juggernaut that was the Wehrmacht may have been remarkable, but it would not have been possibly without such a well-trained cadre.

Hence, logical was the man's move to the Allgem. SS (which was not called such in 1931) and then the shift to the SSVT in 1935.
To be sure, he was not a Junkerschule graduate and then poster child Waffen SS darling celebrated by the regime and then by collectors to the nth degree, he was a rear echelon man, combat service support, disdained by some but essential to all.

He really had a very typical career for those who joined the Party and the SS in the pre- and early-Third Reich period, didn't he?

He was born into a family of modest financial means, had a rather low level of education, was formed by a youth and early adulthood marked by the events of WW1, the chaotic years of the post-war/Freikorps era and the period of hyper-inflation with all the trauma this brought, had a military background... His story resembles that of countless others.

At first, he did exceedingly well in the movement, with a rather rapid series of promotions and increasing responsibilities and the natural and seamless transitions from part-timer to full-timer in the ASS and then on to the SSVT, and then, suddenly things started to go much slower than they had up until then, with an organization that evolved from a small bodyguard force for a radical political party now transforming into a professional army and requiring a far higher degree of professionalism...
Nearly a decade later, with him now middle-aged and apparently more than a little war-weary, this old ex-NCO's superiors' write about how there are now many younger administrative officers who are much better qualified and of greater mental agility and skills than his. (Many of these young competitors would have progressed from the Hitler Youth and through the Junkerschulen system, no doubt.)

The clarity of old military German is also pleasing, something which is now lost forever in the jargon that befouls all leadership and management in the 21st century.

How true! Permeated by anglicisms, political correctness and euphemysms, adminspeak is not what it used to be.

Dare I say that Andreas is a close colleague and we spend some time in person setting out strategy of how to perform our role here.

Meetings, I might add, that are always pleasant and inspiring, although, for simple reasons of geographical distance, not as frequent as we would like them to be.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Bravo, Andreas, thank you for organizing my chaotic outburst.

The younger administrative personnel likely had a higher level of education, too, I would imagine.

But NCOs in the Rw had to attain a level of education and training that would shock some of you.

I have a two volume continuing education volume from said epoch, and it is heads and shoulders above some military manuals of the present.

They key with all of this is to spot the general in the specific, a skill that Andreas has with great deftness.

Thanks to you all and, once more, this thread shows the potential of this medium, versus the Kindergarten and or gang land outbursts had recently in a few other threads.

[DrCMH]

This really is, I believe, my favorite thread found on the forum. Not because it is regarding an item I own, but rather, the kind of knowledge and perspective that is shared amongst people interested in history. Here we find pleasant exchanges by my favorite collectors and historians and I can not thank them enough.