German Soldier's Peppermint Ration Tin

[VolksJager]

I received another ration tin to go with the Scho-Ka-Kola tin I posted earlier in the week. Its a German Peppermint Ration tin, looks to have never been issued out and in great condition with only the normal signs of wear. Measures about 4cm across and finished in dark and light green with a graphic of a lady holding a sword to the front. The type of tin is featured in the book "Rations of the German Wehrmacht in World War II" by Jim Pool and Tom Bock (I have included a pic of the cover, the tin is shown in the bottom lower"

Not something that turns up all the time and goes well with the rest of my personal ration/smoking gear I have

Regards
Jason

[sandgroper]

You've certainly got some interesting gear Jase!

[Glenn66]

Nice one Jase! I have the same matches but to be honest i've always been abit dubious of them. I would have thought it extremely unlikely that cigarettes and matches would have survived much after the war seeing as they would have been a better form of barter than actual cash. Still, they make a nice addition to a display!

[VolksJager]

Thanks Glenn. I know what you mean about the matches and cigarettes but they do look good in a collection. The graphics and colours are great on these items and not to expensive

Actually speaking of the matches there is a box of the Haushaltsware Matches, full, on German Ebay at the moment. Am watching them to see what price they get to but they are cheap at the moment

Jason

[Frundsberg]

Nice finds! Actually WWII period cigaretts are not so uncommon in Germany. I have seen lots of 200-500 unopened packeges sold as 1 lot during recent years, all with original cigarettes still inside. Just think - when You are a hard smoker, You need 1-2 packages per day. So 100 packeges is not too much - only 2 months or so...

[Glenn66]

My packet of Salem #6 is still full and I think I paid 20e, not so bad when you consider what a packet of 20 costs these days!

[Wagriff]

I think I still have an identical pack of Salem #6's around the house somewhere....

[HPL2008]

Measures about 4cm across and finished in dark and light green with a graphic of a lady holding a sword to the front.

You might be interested in the background of this design and the name of those sweets ("Schorndorfer Weiber" = "Women of Schorndorf", "Marke Künkelin" = "Künkelin brand").

It goes back to an occurence in the Nine Years' War.

In 1688, the town and fortress of Schorndorf in Wurttemberg received orders to surrender to French forces under the notorious General Ezéchiel de Mélac; the duchy's government at Stuttgart having been willing to simply give up on Schorndorf and hand it over to the French so as to protect the capital Stuttgart.

However, Schorndorf's garrison commander and her citizens were wholly unwilling to comply with this. At a particularly critical point, when envoys from Stuttgart carrying the surrender orders were at the town hall, the outraged women of Schorndorf, led by Anna-Barbara Walch (later called Künkelin after re-marrying following the death of her first husband) armed themselves with everything from halberds to sickles and from knives to pitchforks and stormed the town hall with cries of "Death to the traitors!".

The envoys were closely guarded and detained at the town hall for three days. Soon afterwards, General de Mélac arrived, fully expecting the town to be handed over... and meeting with a massive disappointment. Lacking sufficient troops and firepower to take Schorndorf by force, he withdrew (not after setting fire to some houses on the outskirts of town, though).

Eventually, the long-expected Imperial troops arrived and forced him to beat a retreat. Schorndorf had been saved, not least thanks to its women.

This well-known occurence - whose memory is upheld to this day - would later inspire numerous novelists and other artists and was also implemented for propagandistic purposes during the Third Reich era, for example in Arthur Ehrhardt's 1943 novel "Barbara rettet die Stadt".

[VolksJager]

Thanks HPL2008! Fantastic info and very much appreciated. I wasn't aware of any of that but does add another dimension to the tin. I always remember seeing a doco on the charisma of Adolf Hitler, where he used historic events in the past to help his image and the image of what he was planning to do. By the sounds of it the tin follows the same sort of lines, historical even to help sell the item. Very cool indeed

Thanks
Jason