Heini H and the 'crimped prongs'......stranger than fiction

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here an image of the inner life of Heini H's cap, with the shocking feature that the "prongs" pierced the satin lining, thus giving offense to dozens of 21st century internet fundamentalists who have declaimed that such a thing is a sure sign of a mangled cap. Could the RFSS have done this himself, or did his aide do it? The look of dismay on Wolff's face mirrors his own disbelief at his superior's cardinal sin of 21st internet website dogma.

The phrase "crimped prongs" always sends a shiver up my spine...

Surely your sense of shock is as profound as mine.

Warm thanks to Pascal Bernhard of Alsace for these Bundesarchiv pictures.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Perhaps this image is akin to green canals on the face of Mars, but it looks like "pierced prongs" to me......

[Friedrich-Berthold]

One thing leads to another.....

[mgalat]

What else could it be??...It looks like prongs piercing the lining to me. What a great pic.

[octavian]

Those look like prongs to me also FB. Question: Why would piercing the lining be all that bad? Thanks FB for the good pics. Cant say i've seen many pierced caps.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Those look like prongs to me also FB. Question: Why would piercing the lining be all that bad? Thanks FB for the good pics. Cant say i've seen many pierced caps.

A fine question, indeed, and one that I would answer with the picture.
However, in the minds of some internet savant fundamentalists and propagators of check list dogma and such about III. Reich caps, the sharp pieces through the rayon, satin or silken lining betrays fiddled with cap insignia, which, in their minds, is a cardinal sin, because: a.) no German ever did it prior to May 1945; and b.) such is a sign of larceny, fraud, et cetera pp.

The image is further proof of how little we really know about these things, and how much even less those know who are fundamentalists and berserkers when it comes to their feeble attempt to create a black and white version of the past and then inflict it on innocent people, who are easily misled.

The irony here, further, is that Himmler was an enormous pedant, who fussed hugely about everything, but in reality, showed a great deal of leniency in trespasses of his SS order and its inner life.

As one who spent a lot of time in Germany looking at these things in the 1970s and 1980s, this material was in nearly 98% of cases denazified. That is, the item was well preserved, but anything with the Hakenkreuz was removed or, in the best case, separated. If it was not done at home, then it was done when the things were for sale.

Hence, I am somewhat less neuralgic about replaced cap insignia, especially with SS caps.

However, others more prone to adhere to dogma and superstition are horrified if the badges were altered, or the sweat band was re attached or some repair was made in the course of the decades.

In any case, to each his own, naturally, but the actual record of the past makes such fundamentalists and blowhards into fools.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Happy new year, friends. The past is an enormously rich thing, which clashes with the poverty of mind of those who will never begin to understand it. The people on our site show great breadth of mind and eagerness to assemble conflicted bits of the past to the betterment of all concerned.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Needless to say, Himmler's cap also has a leather peak, of the type which we have illustrated here quite bit.

[Glenn66]

All I can say is that HH should be grateful he took his own life before posting his cap on the maroon site. The resulting e-lynching would have driven him to suicide.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

All I can say is that HH should be grateful he took his own life before posting his cap on the maroon site. The resulting e-lynching would have driven him to suicide.

Thank you. The image evoked a loud silence among the lords of the flies, which is no wonder, granted the cognitive dissonance when reality causes such phantasies to collapse.

How droll.