Looking for RZM Herstellungsvorschriften

[Wilhelm Saris]

I would need another 100 years to finally know what I was looking for
and I would like to learn about.
But.....the eggtimer is running out. And so, all ends!! The one way or the other....
and I will knocking at hell's door!

[Wilhelm Saris]

Nowadays it is easy to find tons of Totenkopf pictures online.

I know, but most often the quality is of no use for a book (publishers need
good quality). Resolution is often much too low! I know this after twelve books.
And by the way: not every publisher is a good publisher (or whatever the printers).

[shell2]

I am looking forward to read one of your books (which is already ordered).

[Wilhelm Saris]

Here some covers:

[Wilhelm Saris]

It might be of interest to know what Himmler thought about the SS uniform
when the war was over. In a eight page letter his thoughts and opinions were
laid down (date pitly unknown). Nowhere he mentioned the death's head for
the visored cap or such.



He intended to change the shoulder-straps/boards as to be the SS independent
in contrary to the army, or fall back for the one strap as worn in the earlier days;
his idea about the field-uniform or what about the police. Most of it all had to
do with shoulder-straps and boards. He had specific thoughts about the worn
belt-buckle. This surely would be replaced by a simple belt .



So, the death's head was so common and traditional he would not intend to
change this symbol.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

"But.....the eggtimer is running out. And so, all ends!! The one way or the other....
and I will knocking at hell's door!"

So true for many of us here, Wim, and we will all assemble in hell where we will endure more queries about cap badges.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Do let me restate our deep allegiance to Wim, who apparently endured the brick bats and cat calls so typical of the other site. This thread, as his many, many others
do well indicate his superb citizenship joined with his exemplary and world renowned scholarship.

Mr. d'Alquen gave us a thread with a lot of detail on the bureaucratic process on the requirement for and procurement of insignia in the case of an arm Raute. If I recall, he looked into the administrative, i.e. Oswald Pohl school, badge and maybe the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt badge, and maybe another that has slipped my mind. Mr.
d'Alquen showed us from his NARA microforms of the Himmler files the correspondence, whereby the bureaucratic process unfolded.

We also had the data on the so called 1936 cap badge, too, somewhere, and so forth.

One of us could hazard a guess at how the process worked, but such a thing would depend very much on the year concerned, i.e. at what point between 1925 and 1945
is in question. In the cap badge issue, the documents make clear that Hitler and Himmler approved whatever came forward, and the second badge emerged from
the custom in the LAH to ape the uniform of the army, to include the 1935 army Hoheitszeichen.

The Mollo and Saris books are as good a resource as anyone can easily find, as well as the drudgery of going through the posts here.

There are indeed many images of fake and otherwise fantasy SS insignia in the digital space, but the real knowledge about the topic is here.

Some good young scholar could also organize what is here into a conventional publication.

I am neither good nor young, so I am not volunteering for the task. If this server ever goes poof, then much of merit would be lost.

Thanks again to Wim for all the fine things he does for us all.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Uniformenmarkt, as Wim points out, had articles on the personages who designed uniforms and insignia. UM is digitalized, too, and we have included it as well.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is what I can tell is infrequently in the RZM circulars, that is, the specification for items of SS uniform.

This is for the mythical white peaked cap.

This item is courtesy of Wim.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

What the data does contain in the RZM circulars is much to and fro of the year 1934 in the creation of the SS clothing empire, i.e. at the time that the SS worked itself free from the SA
in its administrative roles, and did so from the NSDAP in a more general sense.

At the start of this process erupted a huge Himmler style fuss about the quality and manufacture of SS regalia, which, I guess, to the persons in charge was inadequate.

This process was in the course of early to mid 1934, i.e. before Himmler and Heydrich liquidated their boss on 30 June 1934 and thereafter.

Wim has used most of this material and the story is contained in his two books where SS caps are analyzed.

We have excerpted much of this stuff here, but it is not coherently organized in a useful way.