Article about: The enclosed image appeared on another site today. It is an attractive one germane to our inquiry. Was not the Foto Atelier Bauer somehow connected to the SS? Does anyone know who this man w
Bob,
I wouldn't rely too much on that inscription. I have a couple of photos with dated greetings that were signed a couple of years after the picture was taken.
The order for the rank and insignia change was dated 15th October 1934. Whilst Mollo doesn't give a citation for the original order he quotes the first mention in the Mitteilungsblatt der RZM of the change.
D.
Bob,
I wouldn't rely too much on that inscription. I have a couple of photos with dated greetings that were signed a couple of years after the picture was taken.
The order for the rank and insignia change was dated 15th October 1934. Whilst Mollo doesn't give a citation for the original order he quotes the first mention in the Mitteilungsblatt der RZM of the change.
D.
Thank you.
Was 15 October 1934 the effective date for the change over or was there a delay to make sure everyone changed by a given date.
This leads to ther questions on a tunic I have, dated 1934. The tunic has the pre-RZM collar tabs for Totenkopfwacht. Does anyone have the date they were used, if not authorized. I believe the RZM final pattern was not authorized until 1935.
Yes, that was the effective date. Usually there is an order issued a couple of months after the introduction reminding everyone to get up to date. I will see if there is anything later that year to that effect.
D.
To get back to the question of the elimination of the black and aluminum piping, for officers, Mollo did not have the order and estimated the time for change to aluminum piping.
Here is a photo, signed in 1935, showing the piping still in use. However, it is unknown the date the photo was taken. I have been unable to identify the unit collar insignia or translate the signatire.
Bob Hritz
In memory of Christmas 1935, Ihr *Ka***
I would have to look at the real piece and the signature to figure it out. The Inscription is in Sutterlin, while the signature is a normal hybrid.
Apropos the VA contract tag in Mr. Hritz's black tunic, I think this date could also indicate the date of the contract as much as the date of manufacture. Does friend a'lquen have anything to say to us on this hypothesis?
I am sure the answer is in the archives at hand, no one has gotten to it. More of the Verwaltungsamt SS files have survived than I had earlier thought.
The term of art for the guard personnel prior to the 1936 reorganization (i.e. Totenkopfverbaende) was Wachverbaende. I rely on Mollo, Vol. IV for this, as well as Sydnor's Soldiers of Destruction. Also useful for all of us is Koehl, Black Corps. Also useful is Wegner, Hitlers politische Soldaten. It is now in something like its 10th edition as the standard work.
Bob,
Those early (1935) vertical skull tabs are striking. The hundertschaft number on your collar patch is, as far I know, an enlisted collar patch. Officers, being above that unit level, wore the skull without the number. That would certainly explain the alternating piping.
I would suspect that manufacturers received a quantity of tags based on their contracts for items. This would suggest that the tags are accurate as to the date of manufacture, but this just supposition on my part.
D.
I am sure we all recall this image from the album of someone in SSTV 1 Oberbayern. It appears to show an officer with the Hunderschaft number. Maybe he just kept his old collar patch when he was promoted.
Mollo states on p.26 that the officer wore the Sturmbann # vs the Hunderschaft # for the ORs, as colleague d'alquen writes above. But when you read this all closely, it is pretty confusing in time.
The more one deepens one's self in all these images, a number of questions emerge that cry out for elucidation. The color cuff titles vs the alu banded Allgem. SS ones was a particular issue with me for a long time, granted several surviving uniforms that were plainly organic and correct.
At the same time, Mollo's work is forty and more years old and still sets a very high standard in my book, really. It links the changes in uniform to the changes in organization and institutional structure, which is the sole way to approach this material and have it make any sense at all.
There are many more inconsistencies in the Beaver books for my money, even if they are filled with interesting, big color pictures. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, surely; however, this complicated material requires a new standard of clarity and precision in a world of new media in which the give and take of seeker and putative knower is very intense. You quickly begin to see the holes in things with more speed than in former times.
PS I wonder what color was this man's uniform, especially the cap? It is a very nice cap, really.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 08-10-2008 at 12:29 AM.
Thank you FB for posting that image. I stand corrected.
I suppose it would make sense for an SS-Untersturmfuehrer to wear the insignia of the sturm he was responsible for.
The problem with SS-TV insignia is, unlike other branches, the source material is dispersed throughout a myriad of files, (predominantly in the huge RFSS collection). TV updates and orders are rarely included in the monthly gazettes.
D.
Thank you FB for posting that image. I stand corrected.
I suppose it would make sense for an SS-Untersturmfuehrer to wear the insignia of the sturm he was responsible for.
The problem with SS-TV insignia is, unlike other branches, the source material is dispersed throughout a myriad of files, (predominantly in the huge RFSS collection). TV updates and orders are rarely included in the monthly gazettes.
D.
Dear Colleague, Thanks for your kind reply. Had you not seen this series of photographs? I thought they were from the GDC and found by Robert Noss, who has a real knack for Bavarian SS stuff of extraordinary merit.
Please do forgive me for being didactic, but I download all these pictures and look at them for a great while. I also have had forty years to memorize almost every word in Mollo. The solution is simple: colleague d'alquen must put pen to paper and update things.
Not only do the RFSS microfilms plainly demand a close reading, which is a pretty daunting task granted their size, but likely the VA SS or WVHA files in Berlin as well as those of the Waffen SS in Czechia probably hold answers to many things we want to know. But I do not think they exist in US NARA microforms. Maybe in our life time, these things will be digitalized and made more tractable.
PS here is another image from this series of SSTV people in grey uniform, be it green grey or brown grey.
Yes, I do remember these pictures and you're right, Robert Noss has an exquisite collection of photos. This particular Oberbayern album contains a raft of reference material.
D.
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