True Fraankenstein M40ish Tunic

[RobertE]

This is one of my favorite tunics that shows the desperation of the German uniform industry in the later part of the war. It also demonstrates the resolve of depot and field repair units to keep their men in uniform.

The tunic has been lengthened, button holes closed on one side and opened on the other, pockets and sleeve parts fabricated from scratch, and so on. There couldn't have been too much intact on this tunic, but they made it serviceable again - even the M43 collar is not intact and was rebuilt from the back.

The quality of some of the work is off; for instance, the cuffs have no buttonholes and only one has a button on the patchwork sleeves.

s/f Robert

[RobertE]

Upper pockets appear to be undersized and fabricated from scratch -

[RobertE]

Cuffs and sleeves are patchwork -

[RobertE]

It never had a breast eagle, and has some poorly matched panels -

[RobertE]

Grafted collar - note the rebuilt collar reverse

[Johnny R]

This is a nice example of what would have been usually been reissued for front-line wear or for training etc. many of these with heavy repairs etc. are/were not desired by collectors and were not preserved.

In addition to repairs to damaged and worn out active soldiers clothing, all the Government issue clothing from KIA/MIA and those discharged for wounds was sent to be reconditioned and reissued. This is a good example of this, they often have adjusted size and depot stamps that reflect the size changes. Private clothing and kit items were returned to families when possible but in many cases reused by others in the soldier's unit.

Towards the later part of the war in newspapers I have seen ads offers to buy older private uniform items to recycle by tailors etc. They tried to reuse everything.

[RobertE]

1

[RobertE]

Liner has the same level of repair work - not pretty, but everything is patched up

[RobertE]

More liner -

[Johnny R]

Thiéry is a town in the south of France as well. It might be a depot repair center. I have a ROA M-43 with similar stamps for "HV CAZAN" also a city in the south of France. It is possible these heavily worn tunics were issued to Ost units etc.

[RobertE]

Johnny, it's odd you would say that. I was thinking ROA myself.

It's hard to describe, but the torsos on many of the ROA tunics are long - or at least, longer than a regular tunic. That and the lack of a breast eagle when this appears to have been a completed tunic seemed to fit something made for Ostruppen.

s/f Robert

[Regen]

It's hard to describe, but the torsos on many of the ROA tunics are long - or at least, longer than a regular tunic.

100% I agree with you.
Thanks for sharing- it is very interesting jacket

[Johnny R]

I started researching the area and involvement with the ROA but never followed up on it aside from finding out that many of the Ost units trained there and were outfitted and then deployed for security in France etc. Here are the stamps, very similar to yours and the same size. It also has a "T" depot stamp that I have not seen before.

[airborne_steve]

Wow, that is a cool tunic! Very informative thread. Steve

[me6_130]

I'm not surprised many collectors wouldn't want them...It is not textbook at all. I would have thought it was a reenactors made up In fact, before I started collecting, I remade a Swiss uniform and it looked much better than that!!!


Carles