Hersteller A1/5 and CN 35

[Friedrich-Berthold]

On another site radiates this clear image of an RZM tag from what I think is the year 1935. Does our colleague d'Alquen have any guess who CN 35 might be? I think A1 5 is Adolf Ernst, but please kindly remind us where this firm was located. Danke vielmals. F.B. Auerbach

PS This cap was retailed by the RZM. In early caps, this RZM stamp on the RZM tag is frequent.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The cap in which this tag is to be found comes from a leading collection in the Middle West of the US. This is a nice piece.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

interior of same...whoever was SS Mann E Berger is lost to the dimness of time.

The RFSS tag here, as well, since one member in central Europe asked what I meant by "RZM'd and SS'd." If a cap has this RFSS tag, it may have SS marks of three kinds, i.e. the gold disc; the acceptance stamp; and, in this case, the RFSS authorized model of uniform or equipment. Of course, sadly enough, all of these things have long been faked and are used to malicious effect by our tormentors on the world' s continents.

Happy collecting.

Addendum: the piece here is totally authentic.

[d'alquen]

A 1/5 was indeed Hermann Ernst Adolf. The company was situated at Stader Landstrasse 99, in Hannover North.
I have never deciphered the cap band markings that I assume show the date and the initials of the band supplier.
D.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Dear Colleague, thanks so much. There was a concentration of cap makers for the SS in Niedersachsen and Sachsen Anhalt. I wonder if this fact was to compensate for the concentration of Bavarian RZM and SS Lieferanten. I guess no one can say, unless they look at the files somehow. That is, makers on the achse Hannover/Braunschweig/Magdeburg.

God strike me down dead if I make a list here with the "known makers of SS caps...." However, there is some co-relation of data in my very incomplete sample.

Peter Jenkins has some patterns and sales samples and correspondence for a Wuppertal insignia and regalia maker for sale on his SSBW locale. He showed these to me once. They are extraordinary items. Especially interesting is how this material contains samples of authentic items in a virginal state. Of note to me in particular are SS insignia with silver wire (vs. alu wire) content, something of an early era in the SA and SS which one seldom sees in real life.

[peter]

In 1935 the company was registered as Adolf Ernst, at Ferdinand Str. 14, Hannover, with the number A2/5 as a mutzenmacher rather than mutzenfabrik (A1).
Peter.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Dear Colleague, thanks for this additional data. Since it was a handicrafts outfit, then the endurance of its wares is more interesting. Thank you for this additional material and welcome to our band of head wear addicts.

We are grateful for your insight and wisdom. We are at pains here to regain the high ground of research, learning and insights about this regalia while avoiding the lord of the flies demi monde that has suffocated other websites.

FB Auerbach

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Peter, thank you for the valued input and welcome to the forum.

Cheers, Ade.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Maybe we should expand here on some points that might be unclear to some of our readers: The RZM license system reflected the crafts and industrial facets of the regalia industry. Hence, A1 was for a firm with an mechanized, industrial basis of production on a large scale; A2 was for a crafts firm, i.e. one that relied on traditional tailoring on a small scale. I think there was another license for Deutsche Arbeitsfront Muetzen, too, but that is not my thing.


If you google Muetzenmacher, you will find a solitary man in Hamburg who makes blaue Muetzen this way at no small expense---as appropriate for Hamburg. There are also some of these people in Bavaria, even Breiter, which has a handicrafts piece to their firm. If you google Alkero (A Kempf) or whatever is the heir to cap factories in Germany you will see the factory piece. I think it is in the Bayerischer Wald adjacent to Czechia.

Maybe someone can post the chart of all the licenses that, itself, was a mirror image of how the German textiles, uniform and equipment firms were organized in the 1930s. The thing is quite interesting. The Wilkins book elaborates on this question as concerns head wear. The NSDAP made much of its advocacy of the little guy and the craftsman as victims of ruthless American style retail (Woolworth's...), but as time passed, the Nazis ended up favoring industrial production and rationalization as the efficiencies of same were vital to the war economy. And, of course, for those of us who are interested in the SS, it led the way in a form of slave capitalism mass production based on the concentration camp system. I am sure such was no boon to the craftsman who might have voted for the NSDAP in 1932 because of outrage over non aryan department stores or discount chains.

Happy arcane bits of the past.

[Robin Lumsden]

I'd appreciate any information that Peter or d'Alquen could give me on this tag..................you've seen it before on the other forum, F-B!