Rare Luftwaffe boot knife variant ?

**Polakldb** · 05-31-2021, 03:51 PM

Hello again,

I finally finished my research on this knife and i tought it would be a good idea to share it on this thread consideering how hard it is to find informations on those RBNr. Luftwaffe Kampfmesser.

It appears that this knife i found is indeed an original (i have no doubts left) and that Shellmac was right.
I've found a few discussions on these knives, mostly on some russians forums and after translation it seems they too finally believed those knives were real, and also very rare variation.

However, as i still wasn't convinced after my internet researches, i decided to ask again the old man to who the knife belonged. The first time we talked he was rather in a hurry and just told me he had it for a long time. When i met him again recently however he told me the full story: His father lived near the airfield i talked about earlier in my posts, he had a small house and one day as the US troops were getting closer 3 retreating german soldiers asked for a room (it wasn't really a choice to say no back then) a certain amount of time passed and the US troops were so close that they engaged the 3 germans when they left the house. 2 germans escaped into the forest and one died during the firefight. The old man told me his father later buried the said very young German soldier in fear of retaliations from the germans. It was when he buried him that he noticed this knife and took it. The knife was later used to kill chickens or rabbits.

Even tough this is just a story from people to people i'm convinced it's real. The old man didn't knew much about WW2 history and yet every information he told me turned out to be correct.

Here is a photo of the cleaned blade and RBNr. marking. There still are some stains on it but i'm affraid to damage tha blade if i try to clean it more.