My nephew had bought an old house last year, and has finally come round to start doing it up. Inside was a loads of old furniture, books and so on that had to be cleared out. Nothing really special or wurth looking at twice, except for this cracking canaster he found. He doesn't collect wwII, so he brought it over for me last night. It's a German 5 liter watertank, aluminium and dated 41. Still has a lot of its original paint, and marked on the top and bottom SMM41. Can't find a WaA marking yet, but it seems to have had a tough life, I think it has been used for years after the war. Thank god nobody has repainted it at some point, or done something else to it, so it's still in the original condition. Had a quck look through some books, but haven't found this model yet, but I"m sure its a good piece.
We know for a fact a group of 20 German soldiers were staying at a house just down the road (Feldgendarmerie div) as the old man living there told us he felt sorry for the young boys having to sleep outside, so he offered this barn to them.
When they left, a large amount of gear was left behind in the barn, helmets, gasmask canisters and so on which got thrown away through the years. The only thing he had left was a belt buckle that he gave me.
Maybe this Trinkwasser behalter was also once part of those guys kit!
Good to see there is still stuff out there waiting to be found!
Bookmarks