Types Materials for SS Visor Hats

**BenVK** · 12-03-2008, 08:22 PM

Dull boring fact No. 211.

Gabardine is a "trade" name for a type of worsted wool fabric. Trikot, Woolgarn, Kammgarn are also trade names for similar types of wool fabrics where the wool has been combed before being spun to remove all the short and loose strands to produce a smooth, no nap fabric.

So, in reality, Trikot and Gabardine are just different names for the same type of wool yarn.

I'm sure I'll find a use for all this nerdy knowledge I've learnt one day!

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 12-03-2008 08:22 PM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2008, 04:13 AM

Dear Ben, thank you for the elucidation. Your contribution is a signal one. Since others have now borrowed our thread for other websites, let us delve more deeply into this theme with a more thorough citation of the secondary sources, and we can see how we sort it out.With the advent of the 4 Year Plan in mid-1936, deutsche Zellwolle was added to natural fibers, granted the advances of the German chemical industry. Once more with reference to Schlicht and Angolia, for the year 1937 viz:

Rocktuche: Doeskin;Drape Doeskin; Kammgarntrikot, Blusentuch
Manteltuche: Doeskin; Duffel; Eskimo
Hosentuche: Kammgarntrikot; Glanztrikot;Reithosentrikot
Stoffe fuer Sommeruniformen: Gabardine; Moleskin; Cottondrell; Piquet (weiss und feldgrau)

In the course of 1938, authorities ordered a further addition of deutsche Zellwolle or rayon to these textiles, a process which then accelerated with the onset of war. The authors also note that, in wartime, almost any textile was used in tailored clothing, so long as the color was approximate.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2008, 07:16 PM

Since one of you chose to continue this thread on another site, here is an image from this other site of a silken army field cap of the old style to illustrate the use of silk in cap covers. I had a grey SS cap similar to this in the early 1970s and stupidly sold it. It had come with a white LAH uniform, which I also sold.... This cap at hand is in the possession of a noted California collector, and is an especially interesting piece. Notice that it is a cavalry cap, where the conceit of a silken cap would maintain the traditions of the old regiments and also be a sensible response to the heat of summer, too. My SS cap was more field grey in color, but it was quite silken all the same. Where is it today?

Happy collecting.

**BenVK** · 12-04-2008, 08:19 PM

The Great War German aviators also had a preference for silk top caps although according to the Kaiser's Bunker website, the use of silk in Officers caps originated with riders competing in equestrian events needing a lightweight and no doubt very stylish cap to impress not only the judges but the ladies too! Apparently, these caps were known as Reitmütze.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2008, 08:26 PM

Dear Ben thank you for the nice image of great clarity. I also think silken head wear was the norm in elite circles in European society. Opera top hats for wear with white tie and tails were made of silk, too. Himmler wore a silken peaked cap before they were generally introduced in the SS. The black SS officer's cap illustrated in this thread did P Jenkins find from someone connected to the SSVT who was not, obivously, in a mounted unit. The grey one I owned was not a well made hat by any means. Its interior was very much of the wartime grey species. Thanks for the contribution and my thanks too to Richard P, whose cap this is and for his patience with my having borrowed his nice image. I have seen many imperial silken caps also in the 1970s, but not recently.

Happy collecting.

**BenVK** · 12-04-2008, 08:54 PM

Here's an interesting cap that was posted on WA recently. I hope Doug doesn't mind me posting it. A grey EM cap but with a trikot centreband and not the more usual felt or badge cloth as some prefer to call it. The skull is an obvious clinker but the cap itself looks genuine enough. Friedrich, I think your observation that any cloth was permitted so long as it adhered to some basic criteria is well highlighted here.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2008, 09:03 PM

by BenVK

Here's an interesting cap that was posted on WA recently. I hope Doug doesn't mind me posting it. A grey EM cap but with a trikot centreband and not the more usual felt or badge cloth as some prefer to call it. The skull is an obvious clinker but the cap itself looks genuine enough. Friedrich, I think your observation that any cloth was permitted so long as it adhered to some basic criteria is well highlighted here.

Thanks. I saw this piece. It is at least the third in my experience of such pieces with the trikot Muetzenband in schwarz. And it surely makes perfect sense, since the manufacture of the black enlisted caps proceeded coterminous with these grey caps until when...1941 perhaps? Later? But I have seen others like this Ostermann treasure, and one can easily see that ca. 1940 or even 1941 the contractors had this black trikot on hand for the normal black enlisted peaked cap, which would have been considerably less in demand with much of the Allgemeine SS in the Wehrmacht and the black uniform confined to that organization and no longer worn frequently, if at all by the SS at arms. Do recall: textiles were in effect rationed well before 1 September 1939 and very much so thereafter.

I repeat: each day there are surprises and little bits of data that go against the grain of what some of us deem to be the complete truth. I must say that I have never seen Army badge cloth as Trikot, but I would never say never.....

The Totenschaedel on this piece is fake, but such is not surprising either. Afterall, where do you think people got these scraps of metal now that they cost more than the cap used to?

**BenVK** · 12-04-2008, 09:19 PM

by Friedrich-Berthold

The Totenschaedel on this piece is fake, but such is not surprising either. Afterall, where do you think people got these scraps of metal now that they cost more than the cap used to?

Now that opens up a discussion worthy of attention! Where indeed to all the totenkopfs and adlers come from that were obviously, based on their condition, attached to a cap at one point in their lifetime? Prehaps members of the SS stripped their insignia out of fear of being shot on the spot but still had the presence of mind to mail them home for safe keeping!

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-04-2008, 11:18 PM

by BenVK

Now that opens up a discussion worthy of attention! Where indeed to all the totenkopfs and adlers come from that were obviously, based on their condition, attached to a cap at one point in their lifetime? Prehaps members of the SS stripped their insignia out of fear of being shot on the spot but still had the presence of mind to mail them home for safe keeping!

I think that such badges were taken as trophies once the owner discarded the headwear; or the badges were stripped in lieu of taking the entire cap; or the families kept the headwear in denazified form somehow. Whatever, I only know that the things are far too costly and too infrequently found to restore a cap if needed, as Mr. Ostermann is finding out. Thanks too to our colleague, d'Alquen, for the material he furnishes us with great generosity that enables all of this reflection in the first place.

**Friedrich-Berthold** · 12-05-2008, 12:06 AM

Does anyone have one of these sample books of swatches or patches of textiles to which I refer above? Stezelberger had one for the longest time and I thought about buying it, but was too lazy to do so. I am sorry that I did not. The one volume of samples I saw in the 1970s was a killer piece, to be sure. It was astonishing the range of Tuche und Stoffe at hand.

All scattered bits of the whole, cast to the seven winds...