Article about: by Friedrich-Berthold If a person says they are a costume designer, I take it on faith. In any case, the fakers here and elsewhere are usually less fluent in English and take a different tac
If a person says they are a costume designer, I take it on faith. In any case, the fakers here and elsewhere are usually less fluent in English and take a different tack.
Usually they simply reverse engineer the pictures of rare material that we stupidly post like a bunch naive twits that we earn bonus points for our nice things.
In fact, my postings over the past several years have given the fakers a one up, but they cannot reproduce real age and actual materials in caps and tunics. Surely in the much loved and inflated SS cap badges the websites have revolutionized the fakers, as near as I can tell. But then I do not follow the cap badges as closely as some. But the fakes today are closer in certain aspects to authentic pieces than ten years ago. This has all be reverse engineering.
Besides, a uniform faked from whole cloth would be pretty obvious. And one made of real bits etc. would likewise be in a different class and there are enough hyper alert people to pursue such a thing, too.
Much of life is based on faith and trust, and why not?
I do not mean to criticize my British friend, but part of the reason I have made some 1600 or more posts is simply for my own pleasure. If someone learns from it, then all the better. I know I have aided the fakers, not with wanting to, but I refrain from posting or explaining certain key traits that would enable them to clinch the thing with even better fakes.
The alternative is to live in some Soviet or Taliban like world, which we all eschew.
Happy head wear and costumes.
Wow. One of the BEST comments I have ever read on ANY Forum . . . Thanks.
Thank you Nick and of course everyone else. This specific picture is very helpful. I have noticed on the black uniforms I've seen only one shoulder board is common for some reason. Is it mainly for the sam brown strap or is there some other obscure reason for a single board and do some black uniforms have two? What we are working on is a fantasy character of the early years but I would like to keep the construct as correct as I can. The black uniforms have more an ominous perception in most people minds and why we are hoping to use that specific style rather then the feldgrau. if you say SS to the common person the mental image is the black outfit.The uniform itself is not too complex to sew but identifying what correct type accessories should be attached is where I fall very short. Would the same insignias and such from the feldgrau type also be congruent for the black uniforms. It seems there are far more pictures of the gray ones avaiilble, but we would really prefer the black if not totally anachronistic or incorrect.. Basically we are hoping for cuff titles that would imply something to the effect of a fictional but realistic head of experimentation I'm guessing that would be their racial purity division?? or medical research division?? people often dump the character in my lap and say make a costume and then I'm banging my head on the wall when later someone starts driving me crazy with this doesn;t go with that.
Thank you Nick and of course everyone else. This specific picture is very helpful. I have noticed on the black uniforms I've seen only one shoulder board is common for some reason. Is it mainly for the sam brown strap or is there some other obscure reason for a single board and do some black uniforms have two? What we are working on is a fantasy character of the early years but I would like to keep the construct as correct as I can. The black uniforms have more an ominous perception in most people minds and why we are hoping to use that specific style rather then the feldgrau. if you say SS to the common person the mental image is the black outfit.The uniform itself is not too complex to sew but identifying what correct type accessories should be attached is where I fall very short. Would the same insignias and such from the feldgrau type also be congruent for the black uniforms. It seems there are far more pictures of the gray ones avaiilble, but we would really prefer the black if not totally anachronistic or incorrect.. Basically we are hoping for cuff titles that would imply something to the effect of a fictional but realistic head of experimentation I'm guessing that would be their racial purity division?? or medical research division?? people often dump the character in my lap and say make a costume and then I'm banging my head on the wall when later someone starts driving me crazy with this doesn;t go with that.
Your intervention raises many, many issues that are complex, if you want to do the right thing with the regalia.
Hence, you might kindly answer us the following: when you write "early years," which year exactly? Such a point determines the nature of the uniform, to include the black one. Much of the war time experimentation in the concentration and extermination camp system was after about 1940 or so and unfolded outside of the old borders of Germany, hence the field grey uniform is the germane one, regardless of what today's movie audiences might think.
The racial purity division in the SS was, at first, the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, which had distinctive insignia but was separate from the medical echelons in the SS (although then these things over lapped in bureaucratic ways that only make sense to people at home in the most arcane details of Nazi Germany...)
Your story writers must lend you more specifics before we can help you.
The single shoulder cord on the black SS uniform was taken from the SA uniform, and all of the above based many of their rank features actually on Austrian uniforms of the era prior to 1918; or on the rank insignia of para military organizations in Germany and Austria that emerged in the years after 1918.
The double shoulder cord on the military style of the Prussian and Germany armies came into use on the uniforms of armed formations of the SS in the latter years of the 1930s in a highly complicated, abstruse process that makes most collectors weep.
Here is a recent image of a nice black SS uniform posted by a mystery collector. This uniform is plainly from a military veteran with police service who also had rank in the Allgemeine SS.
The insignia on the black and grey uniform generally were congruent, but not always and again dependent on said year. The key to the SS was its cancer like growth in a brief time, compounded by the paramilitary mix of same, further made drastic by the effects of war. People rapidly moved from one entity to the other as the branches and bits of the thing grew at break neck speed as HH took on new roles and missions of internal security and racial conquest. Central to how the SS worked was the co opting of elites in state and society, such that doctors played a major role in all the pieces of the SS. The Schiffer books have a series of illustrated volumes on the officers of the Totenkopfverbaende, where there are many doctors. Doctors as a profession were over represented throughout the officer corps of the SS, but my point is that they served in all the bits: Allgemeine SS, armed SS, security service/Gestapo, as well as those with honorary rank who had other roles, like our friend Garwitz here with his hand grenades.
Mengele had been a medical researcher in Berlin for his doctoral studies, joined the Waffen SS and then served in the rear area at Auschwitz. But there were others in institutes without such front line service, or not. There is a huge literature on these people which should enable your writers to get close to the truth.
Happy costumes and long live the complexity of the past.
Head of the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt Walter Darre, but he was not a medical researcher. He was a racial purist, agricultural specialist and all round creep. This image is from about 1934, I wager. But I imagine that doctors worked for him, too, since racial science (eugenics) melded with medical science.
I am sure I am making you insane with these caveats, but such is the reality of the SS and Nazi Germany.
Mea culpa.
Such is why we spend our precious time on earth with these websites, pictures and questions.
I have no intent of mass producing reproductions nor the facilities for doing such. In fact I would welcome sources for buying repro correct material as those I have contacted seem not to have the specific items we seek. People are very quick however to sell you "anything" and say it;s correct.
More so they have "generic" incorrect items which I have used in the past with considerable criticism from observers later. Things like on ebay that say German generals shoulder board and later to find out its some navy thing where we wanted something quite different and the purists later then point and laugh. If someone is uncomfortable then it is what it is and no dialog on my part is going to convince them otherwise. Any pictures I have harvested are for my files and one offs for theater not for sale.
I do mostly off Broadway, community theater and college theater, and when the moon and stars are in the right position if I am very lucky get a decent paying gig on a bigger production. Mostly I make victorian corsets , and that period apparel The military costumes are the occasioned job I get not the norm and my ineptness in that genre is why I stumbled in here as I am not a historian by a long shot. if that makes people uncomfortable I will say thank you and look elsewhere. If this is the case please simply say so as I have very little I could contribute on this site not being a collector myself nor a historian.
We believe you and welcome you. I do not expect you to make fake uniforms, since why join an army that is already on the march and over the hill? I think it should be possible to get the right thing from the right vendor (there are people in Texas that make good fake uniforms..) and show you the insignia that goes with the character, if your colleagues give you more detail.
Thank you for your posts. We are happy to help you.
To help Eva it would be nice if someone has digitalized images from Mollo's books with the relevant SS medical insignia, in vols. I, III, IV, V, and the Waffen SS volume. Also, I have enclosed a lot of portraits of leading SS men in my 1600 posts which bear examining, but they are not handy. If Eva also wants some clear images of black SS uniforms, I and others have them. The issue is the insignia for which once more the Schiffer book on the staff of the concentration camps is of merit. Each SS officer had photos of himself in his personnel file, and some of these have been reproduced. These photos make the uniform question for dramatic productions easier.
But SS uniforms are a highly complicated prospect, and the chief error in theatrical productions is the use of the black uniform in unwarranted moments. Such was true going back to Hollywood films made at a time in which the US studios had representatives in Germany and actually did an excellent job of copying existing uniforms. Also, the level of knowledge about such uniforms is today perhaps higher than it was thirty years ago, granted the enduring interest in the second world war and its pictorial legacy.
In any case, do not hesitate to tell us more of what you need....
The SS had numerous medical sections at various levels of command. Here is a cuff title of one such entity for the I Abschnitt in the Allgemeine SS , i.e. Muenchen. This image is courtesy of the Coleman treasure land.
Re: assistance please with SS doctors uniforms
by Friedrich-Berthold
If a person says they are a costume designer, I take it on faith. In any case, the fakers here and elsewhere are usually less fluent in English and take a different tack.
.
Bookmarks