A couple of Cultural items

[Thorsten B.]

Regarding kaiserwilhelm´s comment 715 a LOT of corrections need to be made.

I do not want to appear rude but to me it seems that he has no clue of what he is talking about when he comes to the conclusion that there was no SS culture!

A first citation from his comment 715:

"It is therefore extremely hard to rate any of these items as period made (1933-45). As these items were not produced nor awarded by the SS, these should not be looked on a SS cultural objects but - if these date from the Nazi period - as Nazi cultural items."

Even if we only see that expressed opinion in regards to SS wooden cultural items already this whole thread anf it´s content has given more than enough evidence for exactly the opposite way of judging these objects.

The Deutsches Heimatwerk was nothing but a pure SS company under SS-OGF Richard Walther Darré - the advices in the SS-Family book are crystal clear.

Another SS company manufacturing these SS wooden cultural objects were the DAW (Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke) with the production of ceremonial wooden plates, furniture, cradles and other SS cultural pieces.

Just two examples of many other cultural efforts, companies and maintenance ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY RUN BY AND - NOT ALWAYS BUT AS THE INITIAL REASON ANYWAY - FOR THE SS.

[Thorsten B.]

The SS had a cultural and religious life of it´s own - deal with it.

And enjoy it!

[Robin Lumsden]

When I visited Sachsenhain / Verden a few years ago, I was surprised to find it is now surrounded by houses!

Still ............ a nice place to soak in the SS culture.

[Robin Lumsden]

The SS had a cultural and religious life of it´s own -

Burgundia!

[Steve T]

Its always good to stop and question beliefs and its good that people like the 'Kaiser' come in put the brakes on. Its all healthy debate and adds to the interest of this area of collecting, so thanks to Wilhelm, Thorsten and Michael for this recent burst of activity!

A newcomer to this subject and thread may be forgiven in thinking there was an 'SS Religion' in place from all the writings in here but we should stay grounded, it was a 'potential' belief system, but was it successful? Himmler was surely working hard at putting it all together on paper and re-inventing history, rebuilding pojects to fit his beliefs, Summer Solistice festival events, and so on and so forth but it was a slow process that ran out of time.

The 'SS Religion' so to speak was not mature and not on only that, it was not successfully implemented within the rank and file SS. A fascinating area but in reality the majority of SS remained Christian while Himmler continued with his romanticised neo-pagan writings and wanderings, pseudo-archaeology and so on.

Himmler could not even enforce the marriage rules which men had sworn to obey, SS men disregarded them and continued with their Christian traditions. Early on Himmler would have them expelled as per the SS-Hauptamt Order,July 1935, 307 were expelled in 1935. Clearly the disregard of marriage orders continued and even before war, a further SS-Hauptamt order in June 1937 stated disregard does not necessarily mean expulsion but the couple would have to still meet SS racial regulations. In November 1940 Himmler issued another instruction to say that all men expelled for disregard of the marriage order should be re-accepted into the SS, provided they themselves were racially satisfactory. (see H. Hohne The Order of the Deaths Head)

The majority of the Allgemeine SS were Christian too, at two-thirds. Even in the Waffen SS the Germanic Volunteer contingent were allowed to go to Church.

Its true there are very few real SS cultural items. Also it seems that the most of the SS were not fully into believing in the so called 'SS Religion' (?)

[Michael Fay]

have always shared.

Mr. Fay -- I understand you have a dispute with Thorston. You clearly have an incredible trove of primary resources. Is there any way you could share your thoughts on SS cultural artifacts and their meaning as you see it? I would love to share in your research and thoughts.

:

I have been sharing less since this site's tenor has coarsened.
Prior to this, I have been sharing my thoughts since I joined up on WAf, I always went out of my way to give hints and suggestions to allcomers -but especially anyone who impressed me as being geniunely excited about this field .
The main reason i dont share much anymore is because of half insane comments from one member who acts as if this is his little fiefdom.
By the way I have had private emails from many european collectors (of SS cultural objects) who told me they will never share their collection or thoughts simply because of this one member who they saw I was having problems with.

I am not an SS guru. I know that I dont know everything and never claimed I did.
But I try to learn for myself, and thus can tell when certain mis-truths are declared .
use the search function and most of my posts and thoughts are there to be read by all including many images provided by me for all to see.
check them out.
But it is getting old repeating myself in an eternal cycle of hell here with Thorsten.
As such, now that others have stepped up to the plate, to put a bit of much needed caution into the discussion, I am going to relax as Kaiserwilhelm suggested.

[Michael Fay]

wise man

Thorsten,

I will only respond once to you as I personally believe it to be wiser to discuss economics with a communist than anything with you.
W

wise man.

[Michael Fay]

Hi Michael,

the fact that this is quite a specialist, niche area of collecting probably accounts for the fact that only a few people feel up to the task to provide some meaningful comments. This is not a discussion on wound badges after all - no disrespect for those of you that are really into wound badges. This is about culture rather than military and most people are interested in the latter and not in the former - which is a shame as also the military items become much more interesting when put in their propper cultural context.

I think that anyone interested in this subject (Nazi culture and/or SS), has read and thought about it and contrasts this with the lack of arguments combined with the amount of items being put up for sale and the quite amazing price slashing done by Thorsten should become suspicious. Common sense should be prevailing and if not that is too bad for those who buy into it. Only up to a point are we our brother's keeper. I believe that anyone who reads your posts and sees some of the stuff in your collection knows that you are serious. So I would say for your own peace of mind and your blood pressure forget about Thorsten. Your point has been made and by and large I believe correctly. Life is too short too waste on this. So go to sleep and enjoy the upcomming weekend.

Cheers, W

"...So I would say for your own peace of mind and your blood pressure forget about Thorsten. Your point has been made and by and large I believe correctly. Life is too short too waste on this. So go to sleep and enjoy the upcomming weekend. ..."

You are right, I will follow your advice. Time to relax.
Thanks,
MF

[kaiserwilhelm2]

Hi Michael, Etienne, Steve and Capt. R,

thanks for the input .

Capt. R: I stand corrected on the white plates.

Steve T: the SS on paper was at least very succesful in converting people to gottgl. but what this meant in practice is anyone's guess - even a die hard SS-man like Max Simon who would hardly qualify as a good Christian had a secret church wedding. Quite a few guys reconverted to their old faith after the war, but then again this may have been for opportunistic reasons. I personally believe the TR period to have had a considerable impact on dechristianizing the German youth which has had its impact on later generations.

Thorsten, I find your responses to people very rude and unexceptable. That is why I do not wish to discuss things with you directly. I and others did not join this forum to be offended. This is a forum where people should enjoy themselves in dealing with others who share their passion for history.

W.

[Michael Fay]

Its all healthy debate and adds to the interest of this area of collecting, so thanks to Wilhelm, Thorsten and Michael for this recent burst of activity!

(?)

Hello Steve ,
Can you help me out and tell me what part did thorsten play that was "healthy" ?

[Michael Fay]

[QUOTE=Capt. R;4472254]

Awesome collection Michael! I admire your scholarship.

Which GERMANIEN edition is the one with the single tree on the cover and what is the topic? perhaps the sippengemeinshaft or family tree? There is one at top left and one at almost direct center just above the red cover. I also like the black knight cover. Many of these I have never seen before now and I thank you for sharing.

Thanks ,
but I did not show any scholarship there, just my collecting abilities.
And no , the tree did not correlate with the contents, from memory,it was more an depiction of good Aryan art on a good aryan subject done in a good aryan style by a good aryan artist...literally. So no family tree stuff.
Nothing is that simple. Germaniens would be full of various articles on many diff things rarely a devoted issue to what was on the cover.
Germanien's rarely even mentioned SS in any way other than the publishing connection, and sometimes not even there. That was on purpose, Himmler wanted a premier History journal that could be held up as respectable within the true academic community. Of which, SS publications rarely got a broad academic approval.
So you would have to read between the lines : take note of context of an article , cross reference who was the author and see their connections if any obvious ones to SS (other than being published in Germanien) and go deeper from there(Some Ahnenerbe scholars were much more involved in creating the religion we are all so focused on, than others who, were more doing more traditional history work) And that means having expensive ref books (which means doing years of research just to know what is a good refernce book)--Needless to say that is not quick or easy, and it entails going through 5 or 6 books to check authors names ... not somthing to get done in an off hour on a weekend.
Finally , not all authors are even mentioned in any scholarly books so much is not known (as we all know).
I have never had the time to make note of what is in all of them yet. Time is not free.
And all the pre 40's ones are in tiny Fraktur script, which I freely admit, slows me down.

[m-e-h-t]

here is my add to this great threat:

[m-e-h-t]

great plate for wedding couple from 1941:

[m-e-h-t]

plate from 1938:

[m-e-h-t]

its backsite: