Article about: The attached are in no order whatsoever. The Eskimo cap cover with the Hoheitszeichen is an image of my cap that someone has altered....go figure. Who can match the images to the headings in
Quote:Originally Posted by Fultz
"Serious SS collector" is a class of people with more money than I...
Forgive me, please, my hectoring tone, but I am an old fashioned person fixated on movable type and the printed word. I guess I show my age and I do not want to promote class warfare here with my dicta about books at a time of economic distress far and wide.
Thanks for being so kind, F-B. Actually I can afford a book now and then- it's actual SS artifacts which are beyond my means! The Internet does, definitely contain a lot of rubbish- but then it also includes fora with very knowledgable persons such as yourself, who cite original source material, sometimes filling in gaps in the books. A University course includes classes as well as textbooks!
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Interesting that in the photo of gathered Praetorians in black, not all are wearing brassards.
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The photo in #19- are you sure the man on the left isn't wearing a Party uniform with Stellenleiter tabs?
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On "earth-grey:" Is it perhaps the case that erdgrau was never really any different from feldgrau, but Reichsheini (who always resented the Army) chose to give it a different "SS" name? I note that in the price-list erdgrau and schwartz appear, but not erdbraun or feldgrau. Erdbraun was (it appears) discontinued by '38, but we know that feldgrau (by whatever name) was in use.
(Interesting that a white shirt appears here, officially).
Thanks for being so kind, F-B. Actually I can afford a book now and then- it's actual SS artifacts which are beyond my means! The Internet does, definitely contain a lot of rubbish- but then it also includes fora with very knowledgable persons such as yourself, who cite original source material, sometimes filling in gaps in the books. A University course includes classes as well as textbooks!
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Interesting that in the photo of gathered Praetorians in black, not all are wearing brassards.
------------------
The photo in #19- are you sure the man on the left isn't wearing a Party uniform with Stellenleiter tabs?
--------------------
On "earth-grey:" Is it perhaps the case that erdgrau was never really any different from feldgrau, but Reichsheini (who always resented the Army) chose to give it a different "SS" name? I note that in the price-list erdgrau and schwartz appear, but not erdbraun or feldgrau. Erdbraun was (it appears) discontinued by '38, but we know that feldgrau (by whatever name) was in use.
(Interesting that a white shirt appears here, officially).
Thanks. I do not know very much and would like to answer all of these questions with iron clad evidence.
I am generally frustrated most of the time.
The photo of Dachau with the two Nazis and prisoners includes plainly an NSDAP official (PL) and an SS man so noted.
The price list I included is for the Allgemeine SS, not for the SSTV and SSVT or concentration camps. It says thus on the document.
I have never seen price lists for the other organizations in the original, hence my query there.
Himmler was at odds to keep the SSVT people from acting as if they were members of the Prussian military estate very strongly present in the Reichswehr, but this effort often failed. The key to this is all in Klaus Juergen Mueller, Das Heer und Hitler in which frictions between the NSDAP, SS and army in the years 1933-1939 are elucidated in detail. Eicke also was intent on his Totenkopfmaenner being something other than soldiers and police, i.e. a caste of political soldiers for the war within waged in his camps. The irony resides in the fact that in the end, the army outdid all of these men, especially in Himmler's failure at command in the wake of the 20 July.
Until the Beaver books, I had thought there was a large difference between earth grey and erdbraun, but, in fact, there is not, at least given the extant uniforms of the era 1934-1938 that are in collections. In any case, I collect black uniforms, where the issues are less conflicted.
I suppose as an old person, I must adjust to the present, but the manner in which people learn today has its flaws, which is no criticism of you, colleague Fultz, but reflects my own problems with how the visual record of the past appears to some in the internet. My point: many shelves of books as a challenge to master has perhaps more merit than the thousands and thousands of websites, much of which are total junk and merely repeat the mistakes of others with no quality control and accountability. For every hundred or maybe two hundred websites, there are some of truly excellent quality....but the searching for life in the universe is a daunting task.
One interesting example is the ink spot like spread of images from Bob Coleman's collection, especially beyond the Rhine, Danube, Vistula and farther towards central Asia on various websites.
I do not criticize that the images get pilfered, since that is how things work here, but there is no editorial process at work here.
Viz: a great book and the last word, even if it is now 40 years old. It does not have any pictures.
Thank you. This book apparently doesn't exist in English, but his "The Army, Politics and Society in Germany, 1933-45" (1979) was published in translatuion in 1987, and I'll look for a copy.
Thank you. This book apparently doesn't exist in English, but his "The Army, Politics and Society in Germany, 1933-45" (1979) was published in translatuion in 1987, and I'll look for a copy.
Indeed, the latter work is a distillate of the former. The former contains as clear a history of the rise of the SSVT as any work. Also useful are Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten and Sydnor, The Soldiers of Destruction. The former is the best history of the Waffen SS and the second (which is originally from Princeton UP) is on the Totenkopfverbaende to Totenkopfdivision.
There is so much excellent research on all of this now in Germany that knowledge of German is the secret weapon in the combat with the fakers.
This was translated into English 20 odd years ago, but is hard to find. In the German speaking world, however, it is the definitive work by a very fine historian.
Another book without pictures, but which gets at the essence of the SS as does few others, is this classic which endures from a great mind and witness to it all.
I re read the part recently on the SS, and it makes more sense than most of the others as to the fundamental character of the thing, and how a man like Eicke could have created such an entity as interests you and me.
I have the original 1977 edition "Soldiers of Destruction" on my bookshelf. Although now a little dated it is still a MUST have.
Cheers, Ade.
Thanks. He updated the thing in the German edition, but I do not think the PUP one is updated.
Here is also the Longerich bio of Heini H, which I assume will get translated at some point.
It is also the best, scholarly treatment of our peculiar focus in human form.
If the dust jacket illustration of Himmler, Hausser and whoever SSVT officer were in color, the uniforms would be in the shade of field grey we have discussed here.
But my point is Wegner's point, we have here an organization in historical terms that appeared suddently, grew in a berserk way and vanished in a world war to endure as a ghost. I am now sure that there are more downloaded images of SS TV collar patches than there were actual extant examples at the time. That is, the SSTV that interests us only existed for maybe six years.....that is not a very long time and comprised maybe 9,000 plus people by 1938 when the transition to a semi military tactical unit began in earnest. And then, the thing only had the T. O. & E. of a German division, such as it was.
Re: Earth-brown SS-VT uniform
The Internet does, definitely contain a lot of rubbish- but then it also includes fora with very knowledgable persons such as yourself, who cite original source material, sometimes filling in gaps in the books. A University course includes classes as well as textbooks!
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by Fultz
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