SS cap in Poland and its cousin

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is the sort of ding an sich Danziger Totenkopf as interpreted by the SS in a pleasing model.
Seldom seen in this state of preservation. What events did it witness at its birth?

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This cap has also appeared around the time as the same piece in Poland, but it is more dear.
An extraordinary piece, to be sure.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Another of similar vintage in the great Coleman collection .

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Here is the interior of the cap what was in the Hayes book and now has found its way to my foetid woolens. You will see it is a cousin of the Polish cap.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

A Clemens Wagner cap formerly the property of some Professor Dr. SS man, with updated badge and leather peak or leather bill or leather v i s o r...

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Happy new year to all foetid woolen seekers on the world's continents! May your forehead pressure remain stable and the hot air generated by thought about such old, ratty clothes escape through your ventilation holes with a pleasing whoosh. May your "prongs" un crimp in peace, security and freedom, while the ump teenth change of dyes for the Deschler "scull" once more escape the bombs of the 8th USAAF or flying blue monkeys or whatever, to be saved by Polish slave laborers set upon by the Ortsgruppenleiter or Blockwart or mess kit repair section of the Ersatzheer in the shadow of the Buergerbraeukeller in Muenchen....

[Pascal BERNHARD]

My essay writing yesterday exceeded my norm. I do think, though, that all central aesthetic and propaganda decisions in the early years of the NSDAP were Hitler's and to a lesser extent Himmler. The Totenkopf is a generalized symbol in central European culture, as well as in the specific military and para military meaning. Robin Lumsden is quite expert on all of this in the variety of organizations in modern history who have used same. The best treatment of the SS symbolism by a scholar is in Peter Longerich's biography of Himmler.

IMO is the fact that it exists a black "Leib Hussaren" Rgt in th former Kaiser Reich not innocent in the choise of the skull for the "Leib Garde" of the "Führer" .

[Friedrich-Berthold]

How true, but you should not forget that the Totenschaedel was used by other regiments in the old armies; as well as by the nascent Panzer units (such as they were in 1917-1918); and by the storm troops (Hutier tactics); and quite crucial, by the Freikorps paramilitaries after 1918. The Freikorps represent the link between the Danziger Husaren and the SS. This is well trodden ground in most secondary works on regalia. Moreover, the physical representation of death in German and central European art is ever present in culture and allowed itself easy use as a symbol. This embodiment of death itself surely is no where visible in US popular culture, such as it is...

Pi pa po and happy new year to Alsace or Elsass where some of my family comes from, too, actually.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

Death heads and skeletons have a sophomoric appeal also for people who want to shock the bourgeois and prissy among us, which is the less edifying aspect of this, as one sees especially in present day popular culture. I will leave all the US variants to someone else, in fact, but there is some sort of metaphysical link of some kind. I stick to central Europe myself.

[Tricot]

Okay! Gentlemen, thank you. Interesting the possible Hussar lifeguard connection. And the connection of the totenkopf to battlers of the status quo, revolutionaries and pirates.

And the irony of the death's head representing the protectors of life. Quite the dualistic symbol, that of protectors and destroyers.

I do think it is interest the change from the borrowed versions: Danziger style scull and the early 1927 political eagle, to unique SS symbols the October 6th 1934 scull so coveted and the classic SS style adler adopted 1936. Both symbols moving from the realm of borrowed and abstract to proprietary and naturalistic. And this occurs shortly after becoming part of the State. My comments here are all very ethereal the eagle and skull are easily two of the most dreaded, iconic and emotionally charged symbols of the 20th Century. Symbols that evoke nothing less than industrialized mass murder.

Of course I may be attributing too much conscious planning to the choice of these symbols. Did Herr Arent, tinsmith of the Reich design these? Imagine if the original design sketches survived the war. Unlikely I am sure.

If I am to ponder these imponderables, if not here, were?

Esteemed F-B, if you could cite a resource so I explore this further, my indebtedness to you will deepen.

Happy New Year!