Dear wilsoncurator,
It is, of course, hard to form an opinion about a historic item
without seeing it. Nevertheless, it is my personal opinion that the
helmet in your possession may be a rather bizarre fake. I think so
because of the following points:
1.
The SS units, still part of the SA then, did not use the motto "Meine
Ehre heißt Treue" prior to 1931. In April of that year, there was a
mutiny of the Berlin SA units led by Walther Stennes who opposed the
growing claim of leadership by the SS. The Berlin SS under Kurt
Daluege broke down the revolt, and Hitler praised their commitment
with the words: "SS-Mann, deine Ehre heißt Treue" (SS man, your honor
is loyalty). Hitler's quote was then slightly adapted and became the
motto of the entire SS as "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My honor is
loyalty). This would limit the production time frame for this helmet
to the years after April 1931.
2.
It is true that the original Blutfahne, or Blood Flag, from the 1923
Beer Hall Putsch was entrusted in the SS's care in 1926. This flag was
used for "dedicating" new party flags and banners by contact, in
elaborate ceremonies, and it was displayed during the Reichsparteitage
(Reich Party Conventions). Therefore, the Blutfahne is visible on many
photographs. However, in all the years of my history studies I have
never seen a single photograph of any ceremony where the bearer of
that flag is wearing a special type helmet, let alone a helmet with
such a striking decoration.
This photo [1], for example, was taken on 18 October 1931 during a
Nazi flag dedication ceremony in the town of Braunschweig. The man at
the right edge of the image is bearing the Blutfahne. As you can see,
he is wearing an ordinary black SS field cap. His extraoridnary status
is signified by a traditional German Ringkragen, a polished metal
plate hanging around his neck on chains.
The man holding the "Deutschland erwache" standard is also an SS man.
You can see that he, too, is wearing the black cap:
http://www.vernetztes-gedaechtnis.de/bilder/fahnenweihe01.jpg
3.
A second photograph [1], also taken during the Braunschweig ceremony,
clearly shows a man on the left bearing a "Deutschland erwache"
standard. And as you can easily tell from his brown field cap and the
rank insignia on the collar, he belongs to the ordinary SA, not to the
SS formations. This shows that while the Blutflagge cult object was
indeed in the hands of the SS after 1926, they had not the privilege
of carrying the standards of all SA units:
http://www.vernetztes-gedaechtnis.de/bilder/fahnenweihe02.jpg
4.
When I visualize the helmet decoration you described, I get the
impression that someone combined all sorts of Nazi symbols he could
find on other objects to make it look as "typical" as possible. The
well-known SS skull, the eagle, the traditional German oak leaves
wreath, and the SS motto - to me, it appears to be rather glutted; too
much of everything. I have a feeling that for placing the eagle on the
helmet, someone has taken inspiration from a Spanish helmet from the
Franco era based upon the German M-35, with a Spanish brass eagle
attached to the front [2]:
http://www.germanhelmet.com/SPAN35A.jpg
Maybe this inspiration was then combined with the general appearance
of the striking insignia on the front of Luftschutz (air raid) warden
helmets [3]:
http://www.axishistory.com/fileadmin/user_upload/h/helmet-lschutz-m16-1.jpg
I can't help but think that someone wanted to create something that
looked convincing, but did too much by adding too many decorative
details from various sources.
For these reasons, I think that the helmet in your possession is a
fake based upon an ordinary steel helmet, maybe one of the the
Austrian variants of the German helmet which had a rounder dome and a
longer front visor.
There is, of course, also the possiblility that you own a prototype
that was made for design evaluation purposes, but then rejected and
never introduced. This might explain the hand-written number and why
there is no manufacturer's mark.
So much for my opinion concerning the helmet you described. But I must
stress that my assessment and personal opinion can not subsitute
evaluation by an expert who personally examines the helmet, with
special regards to materials, aging marks, etc.
Best regards,
Scriptor
Sources:
[1] Vernetztes Gedächtnis - Topographie der nationalsozialistischen
Gewaltherrschaft in Braunschweig: "SA Feld" Franzsches Feld
http://www.vernetztes-gedaechtnis.de/franz.htm
[2] German Helmet: About German Helmets
http://www.germanhelmet.com/abouthelmet.html
[3] Axis History Factbook: Luftschutz M16 Reissue Helmet
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=5430
Vergessene Orte in Braunschweig: Das Franzsche Feld
http://procyon.ionichost.com/orte3.php
Gymnasium Heissen: Geschichte vor Ort - Mülheim im Nationalsozialismus
http://gymnasium-heissen.de/projekte/geschi/orghjbdm/ss.htm
Wikipedia: Organisationsstruktur der SS
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organisationsstruktur_der_SS
Wikipedia: Blutfahne
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blutfahne |
Clarification of Answer by
scriptor-ga
on
23 Feb 2005 13:53 PST
Thank you very much! I found a way to view the images. And I must say,
that ist a very strange object.
The shape of the helmet itself looks like a German M1918 type to me.
It certainly is not a helmet manufactured after 1931, as the SS motto
"Meine Ehre heißt Treue" implies. I could not imagine that they would
have converted an old, used helmet for ceremonial purposes.
The color is clearly not typical for SA or SS. The SA's brown was just
that - brown. This olive green paint looks more than what the Imperial
German army used in WWI, and the Reichswehr in the Weimar Republic.
While it is true that the Stabswachen units of the SA were issued WWI
type helmets in 1931, they were painted in the SA's brown color to
match with the uniforms.
The SS, even when they were still part of the SA, had helmets painted in black.
Now, to the eagle. It looks very bizarre to me. It reminds me of the
Prussian eagles on the brass front sides of the grenadiers' caps under
Frederick the Great, but it does absolutely not look like a Nazi
eagle. And the skull is not the usual SS design - it rather appears to
come straight from a pirate movie. I miss the typical Nazi esthetics
in that plate. It is, in my opinion, far too baroque, while Nazi
symbols were almost always designed in a very clear, straight way.
Personally, I believe that this helmet is fake.
But I am, alas, not an expert for uniform items. I think that the
uniform experts of the Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt der
Bundeswehr (Military History Research Agency of the German Army) would
be far more competent than I. And they will certainly be interested in
an unknown helmet variant:
Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt
AIF III
Zeppelinstr. 127/128
14471 Potsdam
Germany
--
Phone: +49(0)331-9714-0
Fax: +49(0)331-9714-507
E-Mail: mgfaanfragen@bundeswehr.org
Website: http://www.mgfa.de/
I hope this will be useful!
Best regards,
Scriptor
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