English on German Items?

[DrCMH]

I saw this posted on a dealer site and have seen this before on another item. How common a practice was it to use items marked in English on German uniforms? The photo below is from a pair of trousers attributed to a Panzer field service uniform.


Regards,

CMH

[ObKrieger]

I would avoid these sorts of items. The only way I could imagine this happening is if perhaps the original German owner's buttons fell off so he had to use captured American or British ones. That would only be if he couldn't find any German ones laying around.

I guess anything is possible but it is so unlikely that the first sign of English on a German item would make me turn it down altogether.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Nothing to worry about!

After WW1, items made for export had to be marked with the country of origin. Hence the "Made in Germany" stampings on many items. Not all of these items were actually exported and many were sold on the domestic market.

Cheers, Ade.

[DrCMH]

Very interesting! I have a pair of gloves that were found in a hat box marked "Made in Czechoslovakia" that I just assumed to be an oddity. That at least puts a bit of explanation to finding these types of things. I have a pair of SS trouses in a "falsch" cut that has a couple of replaced buttons very similar to the ones in the picture above. It always struck me as odd to find this on articles that were produced in Germany but I guess the use of exported items such as buttons from Britain are just part of the economy of the time.

Thank you both for the reply.

Regards,

CMH

[Adrian Stevenson]

As an aside to this subject. One interesting aspect of marking items with country of origin is that some German makers marked items as "Foreign made". I have a pair of early 1930's Art Deco wall lights and the glass is marked like this. The feeling is that the British public would be put off buying them if they saw they were made in Germany.....

Cheers, Ade.

[WOODSNAKE]

Would'nt you think if there was somrthing "Shifty" going on they'd at least use fake German buttons instead?

[DrCMH]

I wouldn't think anything shifty about it really aside from the move towards Nationalism and the country as a whole rallying around a pride of German culture at that time. In keeping with that, it is interesting, to me at least, that on German service uniforms of all branches we find items of British and other nations manufacture. I'm sure Germany was keenly interested in keeping up import and exportation during the intervening years between 1918 and the outbreak of WWII and the use of these items makes sense.

Regards,

CMH

[DrCMH]

As an aside to this subject. One interesting aspect of marking items with country of origin is that some German makers marked items as "Foreign made". I have a pair of early 1930's Art Deco wall lights and the glass is marked like this. The feeling is that the British public would be put off buying them if they saw they were made in Germany.....

Cheers, Ade.

A sign of the unhealed wounds of the first World War.

Thank you Ade.

CMH

[Eric Zentner]

Here is my Germany marked RAD emblem.
Eric