SS RZM & VA license numbers.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I'am just cuuorious if the producers of insignia also produced the uniforms, I think you once show the picture where the earlier tag 34 or 35 year has similar tag I've described abouve

I have no idea. Granted the specialization that seems to be the norm here, I doubt it, but I have no idea. Here are two tags from this garment. You can see that the numbers do not match.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Beschaffungsamt SS existed within the RZM, established in 1934, and grew over time into the clothing and equipment empire within the SS economic enterprises of the SS WVHA. The sources of funds for the rapid growth of the SS especially in the years 1934-1938, the center of gravity more or less in my collection, was characterized by funds from the state and the party in a complex and scarcely intelligible process. I thin that this factor or process accounts for some of what we see here, but I have no real idea from the primary sources known better to others. However, the finances of this expansion of the SS is a well researched area of German history, more in German than in English, but it is a known issue. The tiny and obscure aspect of these tags, however, is less obvious, and the more interesting because it appears as if other branches of the NSDAP, i.e. SA, HJ, etc. had no such dual markings. Or am I in error?

Happy impossibly small details to all who might read this.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

compare.

[Dimas]

I've thought this one, you posted in the forum some time ago. Strange that yours numbers are different in the oilcloth label and SS RZM silk label. May be that mean something other than producer code before/ above the slash? I belive that is producer, but I've laugh before, when I've heard the opinion that this number is RZM depot approval marking

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Dimas, if I am not mistaken, the image of the RFSS tag and the date tag are from Bob Hritz's SS Wachverbaende uniform, with the first pattern Totenschaedel. Perhaps the tunic was made by the same firm that made the Kampfbinden in this case, but such is the exception.
I believe that the Beschaffungsamt SS had a parallel system of some kind, this belief based on the evidence. I do not know of any "RZM depot system" If you look carefully at the Handbook, there is no such thing. There were wholesalers of various things licensed by the RZM, but depots, to the extent they existed, were in the frame of the various organizations regulated by the RZM, i.e. NSDAP, SA, SS, etc. The SS surely did develop a depot system in the fullness of time, but I have offered the evidence here of the procurement organization within the SS. In any case, I would welcome some tangible, usable evidence. The speculation about these things on other sites is mostly trash.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

My cap making book makes clear reference to special directives from the Beschaffungsamt SS on the manufacture of caps, which squares with the Mitteilungsblaetter d RZM evidence for the years 1934-1935, in turn.
However, I have never had the chance to research any of this beyond the broken little bits that appear here. It is a hobby horse of mine. What interested me, though, is the instance that on one of my black tunics, the RZM tag number and that on the VA tag are identical.

The black tunic with the brown tag, of which I own three such, contrasts with a black tunic from 1939 issued to an Alsatian Standarte.

[DrCMH]

Thanks to Dimas and F-B for going into further depth with this thread. A very informative view on the procurement process of the SS from F-B, I only wish I had some information to share that furthered the group knowledge.

Thanks again,

CMH

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Thanks to Dimas and F-B for going into further depth with this thread. A very informative view on the procurement process of the SS from F-B, I only wish I had some information to share that furthered the group knowledge.

Thanks again,

CMH

Thanks. Sadly, or revealingly, or whatever, this is the only place that such inquiry unfolds. And we know far less than we think. Nothing in Nazi Germany was terribly simple, so this is one more odd thing.


thanks to those of you interested in this arcane subject. It is, however, central to the recognition and decoding of real regalia.

[DrCMH]

Nearly six years have passed and I am no closer to a definitive answer.

[backtothefront]

I recall a central line from a favorite movie of mine... The Illustrated Man (starring Rod Steiger, from a book by by Ray Bradbury)
"Each person who tries to see beyond their own time must face questions for which their cannot be absolute answers"
Such threads need to be rekindled occasionally. Thanks