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What color brown was the original SA/SS brownshirt?
I'm looking for information on the original SA brownshirt aka the (Rossbach bought) 'Lettow Shirt' (1924-1929c) It was worn by Hitler, Hess, Himmler and many others attending the 1927 Reichsparteitag. It was even worn by Horst Wessel
Hitler wearing the shirt in 1926 Hoffmann test photos
Here is Hitler wearing the shirt with Goebbels at the 1927 Reichsparteitag
Also from the 1927 RPT: Hess, Graf, Himmler, Hitler, and others wearing der shirt
1927 RPT: Hitler with Hess , note the unique drape of the upper sleeve
Himmler wearing the shirt
As does Horst Wessel
Very specifically, I'm looking to locate one of these rare shirts , from a private
collection if possible, to answer a few basic questions:
Photos show it to be a rather dark brown, with pearlescent buttons, but what shade
of brown was it?
What was the shirts material? It appears to be rather course in the photos. denim?
cotton? gabardine? It also looked to have a sheen to it. what does it look like to you?
What was the reason for the unique upper sleeve cut? Do you think it was meant to
adjust the length of the sleeves?
Hand colored photos and a few paintings are the only color references which could
be found.
here are a few:
This appears to be a painting made from a 1926 Hoffmann photo
This was a hand-colored cigarette card also made from the same 1926 photo, although with a different shade of brown.
Would be very grateful for any help to locate a collector who might own one of these shirts in a private collection.
Also would appreciate comments from those knowledgeable about uniforms from the kampfzeit period or anyone else wanting to assist in this challenge
Please post any photos of this shirt that you might have here, to aid in the discussion
Last edited by dimitrov2012; 02-16-2017 at 09:27 AM.
Reason: spacing adjustment
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02-16-2017 09:23 AM
# ADS
Circuit advertisement
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If you want one of those Stephen Wolf is your best bet - you'd better have very deep pockets indeed
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The color was just prescribed as brown. No more then that.
Photo from one of my books, SS wearing the same color as SA:
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and I sincerely doubt there existed a single, standardized color in the year 1927.
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FB: you are right by this, I think. They did wear what they could
find in stocks (either from Germany or Austria). By about 1929 the
color became lighter and was in fact what they called "Das Braunhemd".
The photo shows colors from about the mid-1930's up through the war!
Except the NSBO tunic, which is from 1933 or about. In manufacturing
regulations from 1936 they specifically mentioned it as SA-Braun (as
well as for NSKK and SS), PL-Braun or HJ-Braun, so there must be a small
difference in the brown to be used. And yes, weather, light/sun give it
also another shade!
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We have included, for what it is worth, a cloth sample book from 1933 and one from 1935, with swatches of cotton as used in shirts. (see my post below...)
You might address your query to the very able people in the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt, who may or may not have tropical uniforms
of the type whence came the first Nazi brown shirt.
The earlier shade of SA brown phased out whenever in favor of the olive drab shade of SA brown often photographs as nearly black,
so another issue is how a given color of textile appears in photographs of the era and so forth.
For lack of better evidence, the hand colored images of the early Hoffman pictures is likely the source upon which you will have to rely.
Last edited by Friedrich-Berthold; 02-16-2017 at 06:34 PM.
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by
Wilhelm Saris
FB: you are right by this, I think. They did wear what they could
find in stocks (either from Germany or Austria). By about 1929 the
color became lighter and was in fact what they called "Das Braunhemd".
The photo shows colors from about the mid-1930's up through the war!
Except the NSBO tunic, which is from 1933 or about.
Thank you, Wim, and happy birthday here, too.
I own a lot of brown shirts of later make, and they vary in color via the kind of cotton used, and how used they are at all.
They tend to bleach out and cotton fades from sunlight, which I hardly need explain.
I have friends who collected colonial troop uniforms from the pre 1918 epoch, and I have seen a fair number of such uniforms in my time.
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Don' t forget :
The shirt color is the result of Pigment + fabric ( brown pigment + cotton for example ).
You can use same pigment on wool or cotton it will give back not the same color !
It depends of the fabric quality too, cotton for example is light yellow without whitening process.
And it 's only out of the factory.
After, in use you have color fade by sunlight, wash,..
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In volume 3 I tried to explain colors at hand of an Amann color chart.
Remind that in the years 1930 to 1945 such chart did have over
1,000 colors. A chart from the 1990's just over 300.
Further colors then could deviate, due to the shade variations as
permitted by the RZM to be 10%. There were constantly problems
with colors and to get the right shade!
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Actually with synthetic pigments there is less problems.
But trying to coordinate every cotton manufacturer and pigment makers seems impossible.
10 % is incredibly low for this period.
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