Article about: I want to share with you a few German gasmasks found exactly like they’ve been left.I’ll post detailed pictures of the masks as if you had them in your hands. First one is a totally matching
I want to share with you a few German gasmasks found exactly like they’ve been left.I’ll post detailed pictures of the masks as if you had them in your hands.
First one is a totally matching Auer mask made in 1940.The 1938 and 1939 dated parts obviously have been made before the 1940-dated ones,hence that’s how you can reasonably tell when your mask has been made.The Fe41 filter is the only thing that has been changed during the life of the gas mask and it comes with his Bakelite-laquered screw-on cap and the pressure cap on its bottom which is stamped “bwz” ,i.e. the code for Auer-Gesellschaft AG,Oranienburg plant.
The mask belonged to one Ludwig Polaczech,probably a soldier or a man of Czech origins working for a paramilitary organization at a shipyard (Werft).The typed label inside the lid reads Polatschek (germanized) and Werft (shipyard/dockyard).I can’t figure out why the place where our man worked is indicated on the label along with his name,as if he had several gasmasks scattered in all the places he went to…we’ll never know for sure.His name is scribbled with a pointed tool on the lid of the spare lenses small box and on the bottom of the container,and it’s also neatly written in red on the side of the latter.
What’s interesting here,rather than a lengthy,boring,pointless and clueless debate as to what the label means or who was Herr Polaczech,is the state of the gasmask,found as it was left and opened up for the third or fourth time in its entire life.
Enjoy
Untouched and matching Gasmaske 30
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Looking for the photo albums of Leutnant Emil Freitag, 3. / G.R. 377
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