Batlle Damaged KIA M35....Heer or KM??

[ahnenerbe]

I acquired this as a Kriegsmarine but some friends moved some doubts about the fact that the eagle decal should be a toned heer....what do you think?

From the seller description it seems that the helmet was taken in Italy by an old man after seeing a soldier step on a mine.

The helmet is a little bit deformed and ,as you can see, the chinstraps holders are heavily damaged as if the helmet had been violently ripped away from the head.

Liner is dry but almost in good shape and in my opinion there is also presence of several parts of blood stains.

It’s an ES.

What jump to my eyes is the fact that it seems era repainted due this is the typical army green and not KM but eagle decal seems to me a KM…am I wrong??

Thanks for looking!!

[4md]

gday, im not sure about the paint and the decal looks like its been scraped and then painted around....i cant see a german soldier doing this

[ahnenerbe]

gday, im not sure about the paint and the decal looks like its been scraped and then painted around....i cant see a german soldier doing this

This is the same thing that I asked to myself but considering that the paint really seems to be era done and decals are 100% original I would be glad to solve this dilemma!!

If we see the eagle decal we can see the painting under the scratch....

[Schwerpunkt]

ES does not exist as a maker , it's either ET or SE. If SE I'm positive it's a Heer helmet as they didn't produce double decal KM's , if it's an ET I also think it's a Heer albeit very heavily toned as is the white portion of the tricolor.
The green color reminds me of what the Norwegians used to paint their German helmets with post war so it could be that the decals have been exposed.
I don't see the point of painting a flat factory green helmet , flat green again.
Just my opinion of course.

[davejb]

I agree with Frank on this , also , although there is evidence of force being used against the chinstrap posts, i see nothing that would indicate a blast effect on the exposed areas of the helmet, no blast damage to the interior nor the rim extremities, stepping on a mine would produce some form of damage under the helmet, ie stones, projected pieces of metal , scorch marks, anything , yet i see nothing, believe the item not the story, is there any chance of corroborating the helmet maker marks

[Walkwolf]

I agree with the above two comments, however I tend to think the finish
is a post-war/modern paint, which appears to have a lot more shine.
It's like 'British Racing Green'.................!

Maybe someone has done this to 'freshen up' original paint loss,
and make the helmet look better in their eyes.

[Nathan5kdp]

Under the scratched decals you can see paint, which looks to me like the same paint covering the rest of the helmet. And obviously the paint covering the rest of the helmet isn't factory done as it has runs in the paint and isn't a factory standard paint. So this gives me reason to believe that the decals aren't original factory applied decals but added sometime later. It is very unlikely the soldier added the decals himself as there was no real practical reason to in the battlefield. So then why would the soldier, repaint his helmet, THEN add decals. THEN repaint around them (you can see paint strokes around the decals). It makes no sense. On top of that this paint screams postwar to me from the glossy finish and shade of green. Best case scenario some veteran did this to the helmet in the 1950's or 1960's to spice up his souvenir by adding original decals and some new paint.

[ahnenerbe]

Seeing better all, I have to agree with all of you and this makes me really sad...due I really cannot find any reason why the soldier would have done a job like this.

"The green color reminds me of what the Norwegians used to paint their German helmets with post war so it could be that the decals have been exposed."

I would agree with Schwerpunkt......

[DougB]

I have to think postwar painted with decals exposed as well, and toned Heer not KM on this ET helmet.

[ahnenerbe]

I cannot understand the reasosns of a repainting...I forgot also to say that there is no paint on the interior, I mean on the interiror top of the helmet. All the paint, this strange green, arrives to the liner band..afterwords nothing...only a mummified spider!!