It looks legit to me, a coat for NCOs and private soldiers, The chevron denotes a soldier who has served at least 18 months!..
Yep looks fine to me as well.
These are still fairly common and do not command high prices, they are still being sold as government surplus rather than "militaria" per se in most cases. However, DDR kit is going up in price as more collectors turn to it as a subject in its' own right.
"Grenztruppen Der DDR" means "Border Troops of the DDR" and the light green of the cuff title and other uniform facings, piping etc is the arm of service colour (Waffenfarbe in German) for the border guards. They were not actually part of the NVA (Nationalvolksarmee or National Peoples Army) but were a distinct arm under the control of the Ministerium des Innern (MdI) or Ministry of the Interior rather than the Ministerium der Verteidigung (MdV) or Ministry of Defence which body oversaw the NVA (the term NVA encompassed the Navy and Airforce as does the term Bundeswehr in modern Germany (and former West Germany BRD/FRG) just as Wehrmacht included Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine in the Third Reich. None of this is to be confused with the German "Streitkraefte" which means armed/military forces as we use the term in English.
Straying a bit from the original question but I feel it is always good to "flesh out" an explanation so I hope this helps or is at least of interest as you did say you didn't recognise the light green!
Regards
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
Is this coat black? They didn't use black ones, looks re-dyed to me...?
Yes it has been dyed in black......look at all the threads (seams, button holes, the writing on the cuffband a.s.o. )...... weird!!
Let's just make sure that everybody understands this coat, in this colour, was never actually worn in East Germany. Somebody dyed it for whatever reason...
Yes, dyed and in my opinion it ruined the coat.
Take the insignias off of it and you'll have a nice Winter coat.
William
"Much that once was, is lost. For none now live who remember it."
I bought one for 10 GBP back in 1991, must dig it out of storage and take some photos one of these days.
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