Kampfzeit, part 2

[pjm]

Here's are some additional items from my collection of Kampfzeit era material. There were numerous workers' organizations under the KPD umbrella. These included sports, youth and women's groups.

The large women's broach with the broken rifle was found in an Amsterdam antique shop where I had seen it for years in a display case. One day I was looking through a catalogue of badges and found it, then bought the broach for $15 on my next trip to Holland.

[pjm]

Some details. The last photo shows three drum hangers. All are seen in use during the Weimar period. The Imperial drum hanger was worn by all sides.

[Adrian Stevenson]

These are all great. I really like the WW1 tank shaped badge.

Nice story about finding the broken rifle badge.

Cheers, Ade.

[pjm]

Thanks, the Huesken catalogue has the large oval broach illustrated and identified. Unfortunately, I don't have a copy and I've forgotten the exact name of the group. Obviously, it's an anti-war organization of some sort affiliated with the left and probably KPD related.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Extraordinary material. Bravo. Thank you for showing it all to us and it is surely much more rare than many of the Nazi variants.

As an addendum from the new Bundesarchiv digital Fungrube, here is how some of the men who wore these interesting badges ended up in the spring of 1933, if they survived the Machtergreifung at all. This is the chow line, such as it was, at the KL Dachau.

This photo is by Himmler's Leibfotograf.

[stonemint]

Rare, rare, rare & rare (and underappreciated). You have a phenomenal collection, pjm--thanks for posting them.

[BOB COLEMAN]

Paul-
I never realized you had such a large collection of this material. It is an amazing collection.

[Dimas]

Very nice collection, they are very rare and expensive even in Germany.
What is the difference is H&C instead of swastika

[pjm]

Thanks. Collecting this material, over the past 20 years, has been a matter of coincidently being in the right place at the right time and knowing what I was looking at...

Perhaps the best piece I have is the large bronze flag pole top I use as my avatar. It came from a once popular US militaria auction house in the late 1980's. Not surprisingly, I was the only bidder.

I once bought a few Red tinnies at a Madison, Wisconsin militaria show from the vendor who had the usual array of Nazi items. When I bought them the man said "those were the really bad guys."

It's a strange coincidence that the largest grouping of communist material was later acquired at another Madison show several years later.

[pjm]

Just for info: the oval women's broach is from the INTERNATIONALE DER KRIEGSDIENSTGEGNER (Conscientious Objectors International or International of War Resisters). Founded in 1921 from the Bund der Kriegsdienstgegner (1919).