Pre-War / Early WW2 German M31 Breadbag UNIT MARKED & FIELD MODIFIED

[Ian Hayes]

Whatever the item is it's a nice find in the "junk" box!

[kabl]

Hello,
I would see the bread bag before 1918...in my opinion it reads/stands
Troop stamp
2nd Replacement Battalion Inf.-Rgt. No.56 installed in Goch(2. Ersatz-Bataillon Inf.-Rgt. Nr.56)
IR 56 – GenWiki

Hence perhaps the imperial button?

Regards
kabl

[BlackCat1982]

Hello,
I would see the bread bag before 1918...in my opinion it reads/stands
Troop stamp
2nd Replacement Battalion Inf.-Rgt. No.56 installed in Goch(2. Ersatz-Bataillon Inf.-Rgt. Nr.56)
IR 56 – GenWiki

Hence perhaps the imperial button?

Regards
kabl

I don't think this pattern of Brotbeutel existed before 1931. I would say that it is/was a Third Reich issue example that has been repurposed for civilian use (I've seen them used by builders to hold nails etc in whilst working in the past). The loose canvas belt holders are not wartime field additions. It carries its history from war to peace and should be displayed as such.

[kabl]

Right, my mistake...
Here is some interesting information about the bread bags
Greetings

Brotbeutel und persönliche Ausrüstung des deutschen Soldaten 1931-1945

[Edward Lionheart]

I would see the bread bag before 1918...l

Hello.
As stated before no, it cannot be, now let's see why in detail.
We cannot say anything of the belt loops since they are all gone, but what remains of the factory materials doesn't look very WW1.
Then if this was a ww1 bread bag it should have, if I am not mistaken, an internal divider splitting it into two different compartments.
Last but not least what we see of the remaining stitching holes absolutely excludes that the bag shown in this topic could date back to WW1 :



WW1 standards : as the mess kit is worn strapped to the Tornister, there is only one exterior leather tab and two closing leather straps on the reverse part of the flap, to carry the water canteen and nothing else, resulting in three sets of holes on the central part of the flap.



Reichswehr standards, later adopted by the Third Reich armed forces : as you can now carry on your bread bag both the canteen and the mess kit you have two leather tabs stitched to the flap to do so, every M31 bread bag, including the one discussed here, presents 4 perfectly symetrical sets of holes on the flap.
It remained true in both western and eastern Germany after 1945, eventhough the internal divider made its grand comeback.



One of my best east-german bread bags that you cannot confuse for a ww2 type if you have it in hand, but would not look so different from war-time examples on a black and white picture that wouldn't show neither the belt loops nor the back side.