HG Cuff Title Factory Applied?

[17thairborne]

Were the Hermann Goring CTs ever factory applied before the jacket left the factory along with white collar tabs and rank insignia, or were the CT and titles sewn on elsewhere. I keep seeing minty jackets with paper labels and all of the insignia sewn on.

I cannot imagine a soldier sewing on insignia and then not wearing the jacket/ Any jacket that was worn would quickly loose its paper label, if not already removed by the soldier.

This leads me to conclude that if the factory did not sew complete uniforms for specific units with all insignia (rank, collar and cuff) on them, then most of the mint jackets with paper labels are post-war put together.

I suppose a large tailor shop could have received hundreds of jackets from the factory and applied various combinations of insignia for the supply entity of the HG FJ Division! A pile of these or other jackets, ready to go with insignia and labels just never was issued and recently found in a hoard or something like that.

Hope there are some with information on the insignia sewing process.

[PaulW]

Hi, honestly I don't think we'll ever know. People in the period had no interest whatsoever in the details we now find fascinating and so there are few records to answer such questions! There are also a huge number of variables, think of the number of HG band variants (including the locally made Dutch variants on ribbon), the places they were stationed and the massive upheavals as the RGG/ HG was built/ destroyed/ rebuilt/ expanded. Every depot/ sub-depot could have had their own policy!

Bill Petz's excellent photo thread (plus the various books on the HG) illustrate clearly that some recruits apparently wore bands straight away, some didn't wear them at all.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...&highlight=RGG

What might help is the photo I found on the web a while ago, that I think can answer some questions. I think it was a Berlin factory but I can't recall. It shows Luftwaffe greatcoats being finished, complete with paper labels. They have (pre-October 1942) yellow tabs (and possibly sewn in boards). Clearly there were several Luftwaffe waffenfarbes but these are being finished as Flight/ FJ. To me this indicates (possibly beyond doubt) that at least on some occasions factory's were contracted to produce uniforms for specific units. If yellow, then why not white ??

As for the cuff-bands I suppose it's possible they were added at the factory too, but they could also easily have been added by HG tailors at their own (various) local depots before, or just after issue. They'd look the same. Could souvenir hunters have found uniforms in stores like that, complete with paper labels? Could some soldiers have 'not bothered' to remove the paper labels. I'd say both scenarios are possible, but it's all supposition now!

If nothing else I hope the picture helps to answer the question.

Regards, Paul

BTW - You're lucky, I was 'savaged' once for mentioning the HG on the FJ Forum, despite the obvious (!) historical connections between the two, and even the 'off message' Field Division pinned thread above.


your lucky....

[17thairborne]

Paul,
thank you for your very insightful answer. The image is wonderful and does point to a partial answer. It begins to remove some of the doubt regarding tagged jackets with insignia. I do realize no one will know for sure, but your comments are a great help. The link to Bills post is super, then again his threads, especially on field made camo items is superb.

It was painful to select the FJ forum for the posts and the few FD posts that exist are also there as well. The other forum, "Luftwaffe Flying Corps" is even more inappropriate. Perhaps the moderators could change the category to JG and FD to remove the angst that others may have. I would be happy for them to move this wherever is appropriate.

[Willi Z.]

You guys have a point. This section should just be for FJ, and we should rename the Luftwaffe section so that Field Division and HG can be included and some of the confusion mitigated.

[17thairborne]

Willi,
That would be great if you could effect that.

[Panzer Meyer]

That would be great. Technically, after Crete, the FJ essentially became a LWFD of sorts. They never participated in any more full scale aerial assaults, anyway.

[brooksbz]

Jackets were usually issued from the depots without cufftitles. I am sure private purchase jackets could be purchased with cufftitles from the tailor.

[17thairborne]

That makes sense.

[John Hodgin]

Were the Hermann Goring CTs ever factory applied before the jacket left the factory along with white collar tabs and rank insignia, or were the CT and titles sewn on elsewhere. I keep seeing minty jackets with paper labels and all of the insignia sewn on.

The known exception is the HG M43 tunic in Field Grey, HG cuff bands were applied to these during sleeve construction at the manufacturer.

http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...3+tunic&page=2

[OSS]

You guys have a point. This section should just be for FJ, and we should rename the Luftwaffe section so that Field Division and HG can be included and some of the confusion mitigated.

Fallschirm Panzerkorps HG!

[17thairborne]

Thanks John