Opening the mystery box: Rettenmaier, maker of the EK II clasp.

[Giel VW]

This is the typical attitude that has been succesfully formed by the Green Party in Germany! Even if you show them a catalog they would say it was not us. Why? Because if they would "admit" that they "did it", the Green Party might request boycotting of the company, will arrange for a candle vigilance and will ask for retribution payment. I fully understand them - pure survival mode!

This Green Party has "re-educated" the German people nearly as good as the Nazis did. One has to lie about the own past in order to have a future and at every corner a "know-it-all" school teacher watches what car you drive, what food you eat and what plants you plant!

By the way, I got the same answer in 2006 from S&L .....

That's completely nuts. For the same reason more and more small shows in Germany have to close their doors as like too many swastika symbols are very bad for your health!!

Very strange is that they didn't have any problem at all a few years ago to mark the GCA membership pins with their wartime L/59 manufacturer code!

[Dietrich Maerz]

Hi Dietrich,

I don't have any knowledge of German politics but it doesn't make any sense to me that Metallwarenfabriken who manufactured awards during wartime should be targeted today any more than the rest of German industry. It's obvious that most of industrial Germany was commandeered for the war effort, and pretty senseless for a company to pretend they suspended their business during the 3rd Reich and only started up again in 1945. If Volkswagen, Mercedes, Siemens, Hugo Boss, etc. don't experience significant censure today, why should Rettenmaier or S&L? Unless of course they continued to manufacture swastika-bearing items post-war...

Just wondering.

Best regards,
---Norm

I will not try to explain why the politics are like they are. But that is what it is, unfortunately. The e-mail to Thomas shows it clearly. Just as during the McCarthy area one could be called in front of the Senate, some companies today think it better to denounce any activities during the Third Reich, even if it is a blatant lie.

Dietrich

[Giel VW]

Hi guys

Today I visited member "pieand" from the forum who recently shared his most beautiful find with us. We had a good talk about the whole Rettenmaier find and discussed some other badges as well.

In the lot pieand found, there was a very (very) interesting tinnie. It's a badge from the Eismeerfront 1943-1944, so definitely a '44 product as like many other awards in the hoard find and in the sales catalog. The reverse of the tinnie made me very happy

[Nick Carraway]

Awesome!

[Andreas Klein]

Very strange is that they didn't have any problem at all a few years ago to mark the GCA membership pins with their wartime L/59 manufacturer code!

No problem. You get what you pay for as customer .... they would have put you everything on the pin.

[Giel VW]

No problem. You get what you pay for as customer .... they would have put you everything on the pin.

Guess that's right when there's money involved

Andreas, what do you think of the spange?

[Andreas Klein]

I'm not a hardcore "Spange" collector so i have to judge on the given informations in this thread and my personal feelings .... based on that i would accept the Spange you have shown at the beginning as genuine one.

I would also say that the design is a match to the P&L catalog and underline everything what Norm wrote about the master die maker.

For the fake are not discussion i can ad the following:

We were told that the P&L wartime dies survived the war and were sold some years ago, so i would not be surprised to have a mix up of wartime and postwar stuff out on the market with this design.

[Dietrich Maerz]

I can report that the dies of Co. Rettenmaier were destroyed after the war.

Dietrich

[Norm F]

I can report that the dies of Co. Rettenmaier were destroyed after the war.

Dietrich

Tantalizing comment Dietrich. How can we know that for sure?

In the KM badges, "flatbacks" are unique among zinc production, not in the their obverse designs (which are very common), but in their hand cut and hand filed margins, as though Rettenmaier lacked any trimming dies like the other companies. This renders each badge more labour intensive and cruder looking to boot. If Rettenmaier destroyed some dies I wonder if it was the trimming dies...?

(Just speculating here, since I know nothing of what Rettenmaier actually did with their dies.)

Best regards,
---Norm

[Dietrich Maerz]

Norm,

all I can say is that I learned it from a source I trust 100% and that is all there is. ALL dies were destroyed. Sometimes one has to trust certain things even if there will never ever 100% proof since nobody was there, nobody took pictures and had it notarized with sworn statements.

Dietrich

[Norm F]

Hi Dietrich,

Well that's true, but even when you and your contact are 100% reliable that doesn't mean anything if the the person who told your friend was only 50% reliable or the one who told him was 10% reliable, or if the info came from the firm of Rettenmaier itself which obviously is unreliable.

Best regards,
---Norm

[Robert T.]

Hi Dietrich,

Well that's true, but even when you and your contact are 100% reliable that doesn't mean anything if the the person who told your friend was only 50% reliable or the one who told him was 10% reliable, or if the info came from the firm of Rettenmaier itself which obviously is unreliable.

Best regards,
---Norm

Robert