SS cap in Poland and its cousin

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I learned all of this from Pietsch's Uniforms of the Prussian Army which I first found in the early 1970s. But for those who do not have this work at hand, published in a new version in 1963, then look at Lumsden, or go on the other site and just ask him. He is a pleasant soul. There was also an article in der Deutscher Soldatenkalender in the 1960s on the Totenschaedel as a military symbol and on and on. The other piece was the cult of tradition and recycling of military symbology which actually begin in its initial form in restoration Europe, i.e. after 1819 and which especially got going strong in its more or less modern form in the 1880s and so forth, once William II became emperor. He is the real father of the kitschy tradition cult in the old armies, from which, then, in the period 1919-1933 the re use of old badges and gee gaws became the norm. There are works on this from the Bundeswehr, too, which appeared in the middle 1980s from the military historical research institute of the Bw. There are also existed earlier works from the 1950s on customs and ceremonials in the old armies and what not, Transfeldt & Brandt, I think were the authors.
Pi pa po. I once spent a fair amount of time with all of this, in fact. How droll.

The 1936 Hoheitszeichen is actually the late 1935 Hoheitszeichen and was designed to compensate for the fact that LAH members of their own free will copied the pattern of Hoheitszeichen introduced for the army in that same year. We have included the correspondence elsewhere. Hitler approved all the designs of this type, I think, and Himmler at the very least, and this correspondence survives, too.



This badge, so attached, was introduced by the late summer of 1933 at least in its initial version.

Remember what it says in the European Recovery Program of June 1947: mutual aid and self help.

Happy new year full of old junk and foetid woolens.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

In the period after the Nazis consolidated their power in the state, they embarked on a generalized program of re working their uniforms, badges, buildings, and whatever else for various reasons--legitimation of power and creation of the appearance of strength in the face of residual opposition being among them. In fact, the SS as a branch of party and state was always getting reorganized (thus confusing its members greatly if you read the circulars), and its regalia reflected this fact, but not just its regalia, but nearly every facet of it in its totality. Such a generalization also applied to the NSDAP itself and to other facets of state, society, culture, and economy in Germany and Nazi Europe of the era. It is also possible (this is a swag by your correspondent here...based on Mollo and reading the sources themselves) that the Danziger Totenkopf aroused at least in Himmler's mind too much of an super annuated elite, estate based concept of the military, which he was always at pains to follow the lead of Roehm to underscore that the SS Mann was a political soldier, un hindered by bounds of estate, ancient blood lines, and the blinkered social outlook that adhered then to the Junker. But that's a guess. Or because the army started to use the same badge on its new Panzer uniforms in late 1934...? This attitude of anti estate expressed itself in other aspects of the SS at arms uniform and its regalia which had a lot of Habsburg elements as well as Prussian. But the Ehrenkleid des Soldaten was also the measure of finery in uniforms, and all the other uniforms were seen as inferior by contemporaries. The introduction of the new SA and SS uniform in 1932 in the wake of the SA Verbot also embodied an attempt to make the SA/SS uniform look less scruffy. So the trend continued, of course, only, in the end, to end up scruffy once more. Therein lies some deeper insight into human insanity and the role of symbols in same.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

No library on this stuff should be without it....

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Or this one, of newer date, to be sure....from a superb military publishing house.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

But if these things are too much, then just look in Lumsden. And since this an open source, global and cooperative thingy, if someone else has a better idea, then do tell us. The sharing of the burden on this website is getting lopsided.

I am certain because of what we found with the 1935 or so called 1936 Hoheitszeichen, that there is more here than meets the eye; but the truth is buried. Besides the dates of the cause and effect in all of this are hardly as important as just looking at authentic regalia versus the heap of junk on the other website and the endless Kreischen about dealers and collectors, and how awful they all are.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

There are also excellent works on the history of uniform in German history written in the III. Reich era, itself, which I can cite, too, if you want.
Several come to mind: Lezius, Ehrenkleid des Soldaten . and Schwertfeger, Die deutsche Soldatenkunde in two vols.

[Tricot]

The 1936 Hoheitszeichen is actually the late 1935 Hoheitszeichen and was designed to compensate for the fact that LAH members of their own free will copied the pattern of Hoheitszeichen introduced for the army in that same year. We have included the correspondence elsewhere. Hitler approved all the designs of this type, I think, and Himmler at the very least, and this correspondence survives, too.

Sir, I am humbled and embarrassed by your generosity. Of course you know what the next thing I shall ask is: have you considered writing a book? So many books are simply the militaria version of Vargas girls books, dry catalogs of items with a little surface History to elevate them. These connections between perception, symbolism, tradition and political intent are fantastic.

It is interesting that Himmler chose to dissociate from the Junkers, however did not many scions of the esteemed bloodlines find themselves in the SS cavalry units?

There are the weekend warrior 08/15 standartes, but were there not attempts to bring blue bloods into the SS?

I have Wildt's "An Uncompromising Generation" maybe it is time to crack the covers.

It is very difficult to get a bead on how the organization was perceived in the '33 to '39 timeperiod.

This not reading German thing is really killing me!

Oh, and I shall hunt for the referenced correspondence.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I write books for a living, but they are about a different topic. My reading on the SS began in the middle 1960s with Gerald Reitlinger's book and that of Heinz Hoehne, which were good places to start. There are now many fine books on the SS and Nazi ideology in English in their number, really. SS ideology is well described in Bernd Wegner's book on the Waffen SS, you can also use the older work of George Steiner from the 1960s. Also essential is Charles Sydnor's book on the Totenkopfdivision, which appeared also quite a while ago and is still very useful. It was translated into German recently. There are also a huge number of really bad books on the SS, that is surely true, which you should avoid. Of the popular books, those of Lumsden are the best.
The Schiffer uniform books are, as you mention, an accidental collection of pictures done by one man of noble purpose and considerable energy, but the random look at a few dozen uniforms had in a handful of US collector/high rollers that attend the elite militaria shows hardly comprises the full reality of SS regalia or any insightful interpretation of its place in the Nazi cosmos. There are now some bright young scholars in Germany interested in the uniforms and society, but you won't find their research on the main stream websites. The bit on uniforms in the Hitler und die Deutschen exhibit that opened at the Zeughaus in mid October in Berlin was very useful, even if one of the black SS uniforms was a fake. I guess we have deprived the Germans of that aspect of their history.


Happy foetid woolens.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This recent book of Rohrkamp that I have enclosed above is spectacular. But it is auf Deutsch.
The book on the SD and Sipo collective biography is on one well known aspect of the SS, but the people selected by Heydrich embodied one sort of sub culture and world view in the SS that arose from their social background, education, and ideology shaped by same.

If the spirit moves me, I shall dredge up some other ideology books for you, but the newer books here are in tall stacks that are hard to operate.

May the year 2011 include much more reading for all of you.

Mollo's book on German uniforms from the mid 1970s had a lot of valuable knowledge in it, but it is long gone.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Mollo's original works on SS uniform are also still excellent and I do not think that the Beaver volumes are nearly as explanatory or insightful, especially for the beginner. The Beaver books do not explain the organizational development at all, and rather portray same in a total helter skelter way, with bits of the SS mixed with each other in a manner that sews only confusion. The color pictures are all well and good, of course, but I have written elsewhere that there are European works on uniforms that so eclipse the Schiffer volumes. Without an understanding of the organizational evolution and c o m p l e x i t y of the SS in its brief, violent history, then you just have a series of bracing pictures of less foetid woolens.