West German Helmets

[Gordon Craig]

Helmet 53 of Schleswig-Holstein. Former "normal-green" helmet, painted over with white colour and a police-star fixed in 1968. It was the first time in Schleswig-Holstein, were riot-helmets were needed and the plastic ones didn't exist at this time. It was made by the police itself and later the most helmets were repainted green again

[Gordon Craig]

The interior of this helmet.

[ET64]

[QUOTE=Gordon Craig;3866188]Gents,

Here is the text and photos I said that I would post for Esbitmännchen.

"
So far as I know the Länderpolizeien never used old stocks of Wehrmacht-shells, they all got post-war helmet productions. Only the BGS used old Wehrmacht-helmets.
Roman]ä[/FONT]nderpolizeien used a post-war made model of the M 40 WH-helmet, too (only Polizei, not BGS ! The BGS only used original M 40's!).


This is definately not correct, I have a bavarian Landpolizei WWII M35 and I have seen bavarian WWII M40´s , also a M34 Medium Duty and a Hungarian M38 used by Bavarian police. These helmets were used till 1990´s
The first helmet they used,were made with WWII shell, later they bought postwar helmets.
I can only talk about bavaria, but in the other Länder it was shurely the same, maybe the sorted them out earlier!
Regards
ET64

[Esbitmännchen]

Hello again,

to answer the questions:

- the UN-helmet foto: it shows the BGS-green colour under the UN-blue and the "Thale-groove" (Werkzeugspur)

- the "Hessen" helmet has a total weight of 900 Gramms. About the maker-markings: I don't know about the time frame, this stamp was used. May be, this marking was used at this helmet type only ??

- the "GSG-helmet" has no markings inside. I have got it from a memeber of GSG-9, so I know it comes there. Further I have two "SEK"-helmets, they have no markings, this colour and production parts, too. All this helmets are identical.

@ET64: I wrote it already: "so far as I know......" (nobody knows all about this helmets... ). I have never seen POLICE-helmets with former WH-shells. I will not say "there were never.....".
In Schleswig-Holstein I know that "we" had never WH-shells. The "Polizeireserve Niedersachsen" used them (see m 18 helmet), may be Bavaria used them, too. In my opinion some "Länder" used old helmets directly after the war and in small numbers (depending on the allied forces, who occupied this area and gave the permission for the police to wear steel helmets) but in mass the "Bereitschaftpolizeien -BePo-", founded in 1951, got all post war production helmets.

I would like to see some pictures of this M 35 helmet from Bavarian police

Regards,
Esbitmännchen

[Gordon Craig]

ET64,

Thanks for your comments. The more information we have the better. I am sure that we will never know all of the helmets used by each polizei in each Lander. It would be good if we had a polizei collector from each one who could add to our knowledge. I would also like to see fotos of the helmets you mentioned. The more we have the better off we are.

Regards,

Gordon

[myddrcaps]

Hello friends,

this helmet is in fact a helmet of "Polizeireserve Niedersachsen". Several years ago nearly all of this helmets were destroyed, only some survived. I own a WW I "M18" helmet, altered in the way shown here. These are no Berlin helmets, Niedersachsen had gray helmets as well.

In the German forum "militaria-fundforum.com" I wrote (forum-name "esbitmännchen") an article about West German BGS and Police helmets after 1949.

Regards,
Esbitmännchen

Thanks for the infomation. Good to see this thread going strong! Very interesting!

[Greg M]

Hello,I just found this thread and I thought I would add another helmet to your archive.I was told it was Stuttgart police helm,is this correct?

[hoover]

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart

It the black horse crest from Stuttgart.

[Gordon Craig]

Greg,

Interesting helmet. This is a decal we have not seen before. The helmet looks good and the decal seems to be accurate for Stuttgart. Thanks very much for adding it to our reference thread.

Regards,

Gordon

[Esbitmännchen]

Hello Greg,

very interesting helmet, in fact !! I have never seen a steel helmet of a "Stadtpolizei" (city-police) before.
Until about the end of the 1970 th in some "Bundesländer" existed "Städtepolizeien" in some cities, depending on the number of persons, living in the city. In "Baden-Württemberg", were Stuttgart is belonging to, there were "Städtepolizeien" and so this helmet seems to be a helmet of "Stadtpolizei-Stuttgart".
The colour of the helmet is interesting, too: normally the helmets of "Baden-Württemberg" are green, this one is grey. It depended of the colour of the uniform.

I think the "Stuttgart-helmet" was made by "Linnemann und Schnetzer" (see vent holes) and must have a "L + S in a circle" in the neck area....

Regards,
Esbitmännchen

[Greg M]

The picture doesn't show the color very well.It is more green than grey.Also,I think there might have been another decal on top of the existing one.

There is only the 64 size stamped on the rear skirt.I was told it was used after the war until approx 1952.No L+S stamp.

It is a very tight helmet.Feels the same weight as war-time issued helmets.

[Guardian 5]

GregM - Thanks for sharing pictures of your helmet.

The very existence of this type was a revelation for many of us.

Thanks - TJ

[michelwijnand]

Hi, what would the same helmet as in post 238-240 be worth, I have bought the exact same one, only a little less good shape. same shell, marking, liner and chinstrap

Cheers,
Michel

[Gordon Craig]

Michel,

Hard to put a price on these as I have not seen many for sale. Personaly, for a helmet in the shape that you describe I wouldn't pay more than US$75.00 and that is top dollar because I do not have one in my collection.

Regards,

Gordon

[Collectinsteve]

I agree with Gordon. I see unusual BRD M35 style helmets sell in the EUR 50 range sometimes, sometimes less but rarely more. However, I recently saw a supposed BGS Wachbattalion helmet sell for EUR 151. I say "supposed" because it could have been a normal Polizei helmet with some stickers stuck onto it.

Steve