piping on GST Schiffchen?

[torstenbel]

I never knew that there were different colour piping for GST Schiffchen?? Does anyone know anymore about what the different colours indicate??? Cheers, Torsten.

[Rev462]

Torsten:

I was aware of the colored piping on the GST Schiffchen, but I am uncertain as to when they discontinued it and went strictly with red. I am guessing the early 70's.

I think the orange is for parachute jumping, black is for Pioneere, blue is for flying and red is for everything else, basically pre-Infantry training.

I have a red-piped one where the flaps are not sewn down, so I presume it's from the same era as the others. I've not been able to pick up any of the other piping colors.

Congratulations - a rare grouping indeed!!

[torstenbel]

thanks for your reply. The colour black in the GST was used for Militaerkraftfahrer (military drivers) and so, my guess would be that the black one is for that specialisation. I did my HGV driving licence with the GST, but the only Schiffchen I ever got to wear were with red piping and like I said before, I was not aware that there were any other colour piping in existence at all and certainly not during my time in the GST in the 1980s...Cheers, Torsten.

[Gordon Craig]

Torsten,

Very nice collection of caps. I have a red piped one but no other colours. The red piped cap seems to have been worn up to the mid 80s. At least according to pictures in my GST book. For what the colours stood for, I think we might be able to refer to the GST Quailication Badges for that. According to my GST book, the picture below indicates that;
1-Red background was for Laufbahnen mot. Shutze, Nachrichtenspezialist, fallschirmjager und Taucher;
2-Black background was for Militarkraftfahrer;
3-Dark blue background was for Laufbahn Matrosenspezialist;
4-Light blue was for Laufbahn Militarflieger.
Unfortunately they didn't use yellow so this badge can not help us here. Obviously, at some time, red became the standard colour and the others were discontinued. The early 70s is a good a gues as any due to all of the other uniform changes that took place then to reduce costs.

Regards,

Gordon

[torstenbel]

Hi Gordon, thank you very much for your efforts and I think I would pretty much agree with your assessment of the colours. My best guess for the yellow piping would be Nachrichten (signals) specialisation. Cheers, Torsten.

[Gordon Craig]

Torsten,

Sounds reasonable to me.

Regards,

Gordon