Earth-brown SS-VT uniform

[Friedrich-Berthold]

when I had the brown cap , they all said it was just a DAF, now i wonder?

My friend, "they" are often in error. The SS ones plainly have SS tags in them, in this case the white tag with "Feldmuetze" or "Tuchmuetze," or the RFSS tag, too. See the images I attached here.

This brown cap was phased out after 1936, apparently, which makes the endurance of same all the more striking.

I was a Dummkopf to sell mine, but what did I know when I was 19 years of age, actually? The Lagermuetzen for other organizations have different RZM tags and surely other traits of which I am too ill informed to generalize.

I sold all sorts of things, especially nice grey caps that I sorely regret. It is the "Rosebud" thing, surely, and a total bore to young people......

[Friedrich-Berthold]

An image of note. Are the figures in grey the full time staff, i.e. commander and chief of staff, and the remainder the rank and file? The title of the picture is not especially helpful....it is some of these black caps here that have made it into collectors' hands. If someone knows more of this image, I would be interested to know.

The Sturmbannfuehrer or Obersturmbannfuehrer could well have been the c.o. of the Standarte in question, granted the data in Yerger and other relevant sources. When was this image made? Where? Which unit?

Who knows......?

Many of the rank and file seem to be Bewerber and Anwarter, which bespeaks a new unit, of which there were a lot from 1938 and into 1940.....

In You Tube there are many scenes of newly raised SA units in such places as conquered Poland and France, for instance.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Note: not "Anwarter," but "Anwaerter..."

I think someone else can now make some posts here, as this thread has passed the culmination point.


Be your dreams earth brown, black, or earth grey may they all come true in regalia land without forehead pressure or phony maker marks!

Also, the Beaver book contains a precise description of the chemical qualities and textile content of certain RZM fabrics, for those that care about same.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Maybe colleague d'Alquen can kindly post some relevant pages from the statistical yearbook of the SS as concerns the end strength of the SSTV and its predecessor units in the years 1935-1939?

I believe in Mollo, the new SSTV had a total strength of 3500 plus men in December 1936?

That does not leave a lot for the seeker of regalia, and makes the cap I once owned all the more remarkable, with its VA 1936 date....

Wie dumm von mir.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

All of this hectic activity made me re-read Mollo, Vol. IV to find that his description of the earth brown uniform is not especially lengthy, but an addendum in said volume describes the thing in detail, that is, a translation of a document from 1936.

I do not own all the Beaver books, as I should. Someone with more energy than I should compare all the footnotes in the 1991 Mollo and the Beaver book.

Shea sold an earth brown uniform in the last few years, which I should find and post...I downloaded the images. The same uniform was in the Beaver compendium and its illustrations were more revealing there than in these images.

Voila. I found the images. Unlike my betters, I have a lousy filing system and a faulty memory.

The uniform I owned was devoid of insignia. The textile was closer in my memory to the hue in the image of the washed out RZM tag and the bevo tag for the VA contract number. But how good is my memory of 1971 or 1972?

May the rest of the weekend be free of forehead pressure.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Notice the Bevo VA contract tag on the earth brown piece and this LAH piece here. As of 1936, the SSVT and the SSTV were placed on the Ministry of the Interior's budget, which might account for these tags and said contracts.... The black uniform has an RZM/SS tag with an RZM nomenclature maker and a VA contract tag, as was the case with this earth brown uniform...but I am not certain of the funds that bought these two garments. But I had not noticed before that they shared the same VA contract number, "124/36"

[d'alquen]

Here is a page on the SS-VT as requested.
D'Alquen

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is a page on the SS-VT as requested.
D'Alquen

Thank you very much.

There are also the relevant pages in vol. IV of Mollo on the SSTV where the strength goes from the start of 1935 from about 1987 men to 9172 men at the end of 1938.

I think these statistics are the decisive ones for collectors as to the actual numbers, whereby one can infer how many pieces of regalia ever really existed, as well as imagining how much of it got destroyed in the course of time.

One is not dealing with a large number, to be sure.

And the SSVT was not a huge organization, either, though it was bigger than the Totenkopfverbaende. The story of Germany's mobilization in the years 1934-1939 is the scarcity of resources for the ambitions of the regime and part of the friction with the army concerned the ability of the SS to tap into manpower to which the Army believed itself fully entitled. Terxtiles were an issue, too, as were weapons.

Thanks again for the kind aid.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Thanks Derek for the solid historical info. As FB has already stated, just look at the numbers involved and imagine what has actually survived.

Cheers, Ade.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks Derek for the solid historical info. As FB has already stated, just look at the numbers involved and imagine what has actually survived.

Cheers, Ade.

All of this material is quite rare and in few hands. Thanks to Derek and Adrian for making this site a place where knowledge accumulates free of juvenile behavior and the high jinx that so characterize the other sites.

Here is some SSTV material now spread to the seven winds. These were not mine, by the way. I do not collect loose insignia. Such were part of enormous collection of insignia from a leading No. American collector.