Article about: by ErWeSa Plus the workmanship - I tried out cuts of caps with the "perfect" shape, yet when I sewed them, they looked disappointingly different. But one should never give up to do
Plus the workmanship - I tried out cuts of caps with the "perfect" shape, yet when I sewed them, they looked disappointingly different. But one should never give up to do better.
It seems this shape (what I call the true sattelform) came about after the war started.
I am curious as to what the genesis was.
Most hats prior to then had high peaks, but with what I call "forward lean", meaning the front peak leaned forward.
At some point, capmakers then started making hats with the body of the cap being on the same plane as the band (or even slightly swept back, as per Welhausen)
Some maker must have started the trend, and the others jumped on the bandwagon.
But as Wolfgang correctly notes, it is not easy to do.
Unfortunately, no written literature has come to light to this day.
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
Apart from Hempe and Prediger of the early days there seem to be some later manuals with templates. Wim once mentioned he had some but I don't know them unfortunately - question is, if these would be helpful - see the workmanship issue above and I understand Wim's reasons not to pass them on in order not to facilitate the work of fakers. I would nevertheless love to see them for comparison reasons. As stated in the cap-making thread I suppose that all the cap makers/cap factories had their own templates which were typical for the respective cap maker/cap factory (one can tell with many firms without having had a look inside the cap which firm made it) and therefore treated as a company secret.
This DRK Officer is wearing a visor that has the peak on the same plane as the band.
I cannot recall seeing it on pre-war visors, as most peaks had a "forward lean" even if they were in the Sattelform configuration.
I have seen some books refer to this as the "Wehrmachtschnitt", but have yet to see it defined.
It seems this style "peaked" in 1943, and afterwards many makers started going with a smaller circumference, and a lower peak.
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
As this is my special field of interest I think Wehrmachtsschnitt has been defined. In the first document I found somewhere here on the forum (credits go to Wim Saris) from 1941 the production of such a cap is prescribed "Die Mütze hat die gleiche Form wie die Wehrmachts-Offiziersmütze (Sattelform)", i. e. regular oval top panel, 27 cm long, 24 cm wide (for a size 56 cap), length of seam of the side panels at the front 7,5 cm, at the sides 4,4 cm at the back 5,3 cm. At the end of the document it says "Für diese Mütze wird das Schnittmuster für die Mütze der politischen Leiter (Form 4) verwendet.
The second document (credits also go to Wim Saris) it says: "4. .... Die Dienstmütze der politischen Leiter wird ..... ausschließlich im Wehrmachtsschnitt, Form 4, geliefert."
So we can conclude that the measurements for the NSKK officer's cap correspond to Wehrmachtsschnitt. The only and essential thing we don't have are the actual templates "die Schnittmuster" - which can vary widely from maker to maker and which make all the difference.
Either such templates "Schnittmuster" turn up one day (I know they exist) or somebody disassembles an original cap in order to find out how they did the trick.
No, but contrary to Hempe's handbook where the stiffener of the front seam consists of a Wellenfeder ("sinuous spring", see pictures below) AND a Federstahlstütze (spring steel reinforcement) which might be reponsible for the bend Wim's document just speaks of a support consisting of a 10 cm long piece of buckram which is 4 cm wide at the top and 2 cm wide at the bottom. On this piece of buckram the sinuous spring is either sewn onto or riveted/clamped onto, see pics below.
No mentioning of a bend, and no mentioning of a curved front seam (see here: Cap Making) which would necessarily need a bent front stiffener.
There are still many things in the dark, just think of the curved centerband the effect of which is a smaller upper circumfernce than the lower one so that the cap "sits" better on your head and has a more elegant shape - often this is just an optical illusion because the visor/peak spreads the lower part but sometimes I believe cap makers used this trick of the trade:
Comparison of a prewar Signals visor to a wartime Postal visor.
Note that the Postal does not have a forward lean to the peak in relation to the band.
(Both still have their springs in place).
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
I was looking through Hempe again but didn't find any hints as to the forward-lean issue.
But I found again that there were diffferent instructions for the making of the caps depending on the organisation they were for - both what concerns measures and workmanship, sometimes the diffference is only millimetres - length of the seams of the panels, of the width of the centerband etc. etc....
The forward lean IMO is due to the metal stiffener which is more or less bent (by whom - maker or user or by use/storage?) either simple to the front or to the front and in itself and to the stuffing material - the more there is in it the more the front bulges, giving it a "swept-back" look. Furthermore there were the curved front side-panels which heightened this effect even more:
Then, again, I would like to mention that "Sattelform" actually refers to a cap that had seams of equal length of the side panels at the front and at the back of the cap, two slightly shorter seams at the sides and two metal stiffeners - one at the front and one at the back so that the whole crown stands up saddle-like.
What we are talking about here actually is the "Klappmütze" - high crown with a stiffener at the front, no stiffener at the back so that the crown flaps over the centerband at the back.
The term Klappmütze has already been explained here:
Clemens Wagner probably did not originate the "same plane" construction technique, but they sure did refine it with their wartime SS-Kleiderdasse visors (maybe at the request of the SS?):
“Show me the regulation, and I’ll show you the exception.”
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