Article about: The Bundesarchiv has also placed on line the digital finding aid to the Persoenlicher Stab RFSS, known to some of you in the NARA microforms as T 175. This group of records now has a Bundesa
The Bundesarchiv has also placed on line the digital finding aid to the Persoenlicher Stab RFSS, known to some of you in the NARA microforms as T 175.
This group of records now has a Bundesarchiv Signatur which escapes me and I am unable to post any images here because of the operational limitations of this website.
Perhaps someone can post the link the the register of these files, which are extremely interesting and well worth the effort to reflect on them in detail.
Germane to our inquiry, however, the documents do include reference to the design for the new cap insignia for the peaked cap, apparently directed by Hitler himself, that is dated 31 October 1935
In collector lore, this badge is commonly described as "M1936" which is another example of collector group think that is wrong.
Examples of this cap badge exist, I think, with a 395/35 mark on them and such now makes much more sense to realize that the thing was designed (and no doubt ordered into production) several months before it widely came into use. I had thought I had an image of such a mark, but maybe Mr. Bwanek has one. I had tried to down load all the images of real insignia for the past seven or eight years, but my record keeping is defective.
The Bundesarchiv has also placed on line the digital finding aid to the Persoenlicher Stab RFSS, known to some of you in the NARA microforms as T 175.
This group of records now has a Bundesarchiv Signatur which escapes me and I am unable to post any images here because of the operational limitations of this website.
Perhaps someone can post the link the the register of these files, which are extremely interesting and well worth the effort to reflect on them in detail.
Germane to our inquiry, however, the documents do include reference to the design for the new cap insignia for the peaked cap, apparently directed by Hitler himself, that is dated 31 October 1935
In collector lore, this badge is commonly described as "M1936" which is another example of collector group think that is wrong.
Examples of this cap badge exist, I think, with a 395/35 mark on them and such now makes much more sense to realize that the thing was designed (and no doubt ordered into production) several months before it widely came into use. I had thought I had an image of such a mark, but maybe Mr. Bwanek has one. I had tried to down load all the images of real insignia for the past seven or eight years, but my record keeping is defective.
Hi F-B,
I believe the mark is 394/35. Here are a few images.
Dear Colleague, greetings to Sweden and thank you for adding the visual details and correcting my error with the "5". The little pieces of the mosaic are joined by many hands on many continents. A miracle of the 21st century!
The RFSS files are NS 19, and the specific file I have mentioned is NS 19 C 4.3. Uniformen, Abzeichen, Standarten
among others, this group includes files on such themes as :
correspondence on the SS Zivilabzeichen; designs of same; raw materials; Fa. Gahr, Muenchen; design of new suspension belt for the saber; new pattern for an SS dagger; use of old stocks of SS daggers; RFSS procurement of new uniforms for SS Bewerber in the Tegernsee area (how exclusive...!); design of the new cap badge (noted above); design and production of the Gesellschaftuniform fuer SS Untersturmfuehrer by the firm Berke-Schucher Schroeder and much more.....the files I have listed here date from 1935 until 1942, but I have not included them all, as I could not get my stupid printer to print out the whole stupid page, since I do not have DINA 4 paper.....
There you are FB,
I shall try and get a copy or two or these files if I can. I have not been able to align them with the NARA files yet which use a very different finding aid.
D.
There you are FB,
I shall try and get a copy or two or these files if I can. I have not been able to align them with the NARA files yet which use a very different finding aid.
D.
Thanks so much for your kind aid with posting the document I sent. As concerns the NARA designations, if you look at the very end of the Gliederung of the BA NS 19 Findbuch, there is a Konkordanz section in which the inter operability with the old US National Archives designations is present. The BA website is not especially easy, it is like an artichoke and you keep getting more pages, as it were.
I double checked and the Konkardanz piece is there at the end of the Gliederung of the Findbuch. The other point is this: the East German Stasi files apparently also had Persoenlicher Stab RFSS files present, and now these have all been consolidated in the Bundesarchiv with their point of origin. Thus, we are dealing with a larger set of files than those microfilmed in the 1950s. There is a long introduction to this Findbuch which nicely describes the evolution of high command in the SS, but also the fate of the various files, spread to the seven winds by the impact of war.
The files elsewhere well describe the impact of war on the brains of the SS, and the need to find additional quarters in the environs of Brandenburg (Ueckemark) as well as safely preserve the files from destruction.
The advent of this finding aid along with Longerich biography of Himmler means we can all learn much more about our common theme. If you spend a while with these files, one cannot avoid the impression of what a world class ding dong and pedant was this man linked with an exceptional energy and racist, imperialist vision which is truly breathtaking. And, such a pursuit is more edifying than looking at fake cap badges and counting the teeth of fake Overhoff cap badges, don't you think?
Happy reading and thanks to colleague a'Alquen for his kind aid.
I agree with you, the BA web design is is less than user friendly. But one shouldn't carp, this new flow of material is astounding. Unfortunately the Konkordanz section still doesn't relate to the T-175 roll designations. Anyway, I shall see what I can find as some of these documents sound extremely interesting.
And, these are not the only files in the Bunesarchiv that deal with the SS and might have a bearing on uniforms.
There are other files from the Wirtschafts und Verwaltungshauptamt, whose core was Pohl's Verwaltungsamt SS, that are germane here, too, and surely have relevant material. The files I have listed above are from issues of uniform, insignia, and regalia that made their way up the tape to the RFSS. I am sure there were other issues that did not, and got resolved at a subordinate level of what became an extraordinary bureaucracy.
To make sense of these documents, it helps to also read the archival education guides that exist in German, and are excellent for beginners trying to get a sense of what these pieces of paper mean.
Once more, Mollo's point is key: without a keen understanding of the rapid evolution of the structure of the SS within Nazi state and society, all of this is gibberish. Hence, the key to the regalia lies outside of it, as in the case with the mysterious origins of the 394/35 stamp on the piece of tin. The answer to this riddle was not to be found at the Max or SOS shows.
SS Hoheitszeichen/Schirmmuetze
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by Friedrich-Berthold
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