Wehrmacht Surplus

[Rawski]

Historical question: how was there unissued German surplus (i.e unissued tropical uniforms, etc)? My understanding is Germany was in a state of total war, using any material they had.

Therefore, how is there authentic unissued Wehrmacht items existing today?

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[GAMS1]

Because you had so many unissued uniforms all over , not only in Germany but in the ex occupied countries , that you even had many Armies using german uniforms
postwar ? French , Czech , italian ...
Many Stocks were hidden also or stolen from Depot in 45 , preserved in places discovered later ?
I remember the story of a french farmer having found 200 mint HBT M43 trousers in front of his farm in 45 , in a destoyed WH truck .
He kept them to work for decades and the "rest" like 190 trousers came on the market in the 90's ? Still mint ...
Nick

[djpool]

I remember stacks of unissued uniforms ( mostly tunics) showing up at shows in Germany during the 1970s and 80s. I picked up a few Unissued items from Turkish vendors at the the Frankfurt flea market during the same time frame.

[Johnny R]

I remember stacks of unissued uniforms ( mostly tunics) showing up at shows in Germany during the 1970s and 80s. I picked up a few Unissued items from Turkish vendors at the the Frankfurt flea market during the same time frame.

My Father was in ETO during the War and he saw massive stores of items left in warehouses. A lot of material survived as it was left behind as the Germans retreated or stock piled in German and could not be used due to logistic problems. As Jim noted, in Europe unissued items showed up at shows in boxes same thing with unused insignia which almost you never see anymore.

[OSS]

The majority of uniform and field equipment brought back by GIs were mint unissued pieces which were abundant at war's end. One of the German "miracles" was the massive production of 1944 (often attributed to the management skills of Minister for War Production Speer), which resulted in record production of all manner of military supplies in spite of round-the-clock Allied bombing.

[PaulW]

When looking into Luftwaffe Depots a little while ago, I came across an account that said that at the war's end the abandoned Depot (I forget which one but possibly Bielefeld) was looted by the local German population who by that late stage of the war were quite poverty stricken!

If someone grabbed several pairs of trousers for instance (perfectly good to wear in those days) it's conceivable that a pair might survive in good condition in a drawer I think.

Regards, Paul

[TWS]

Historical question: how was there unissued German surplus (i.e unissued tropical uniforms, etc)? My understanding is Germany was in a state of total war, using any material they had.

Therefore, how is there authentic unissued Wehrmacht items existing today?

Because the supply and distribution systems were far from perfect and also the war ended before everything produced could be shipped and issued.

They didn't have SAP software, RFID tags, and bin sorting systems like Amazon. Legendary German efficiency notwithstanding.

More seriously, sometimes entire crates or even warehouse rooms could be overlooked or lost/mis-shipped in transit. A little difficult to believe in our current era of logistics, but back then it was entirely possible for entire batches of items to be "forgotten" in the back room of a warehouse.

[Johnny R]

When looking into Luftwaffe Depots a little while ago, I came across an account that said that at the war's end the abandoned Depot (I forget which one but possibly Bielefeld) was looted by the local German population who by that late stage of the war were quite poverty stricken!

If someone grabbed several pairs of trousers for instance (perfectly good to wear in those days) it's conceivable that a pair might survive in good condition in a drawer I think.

Regards, Paul

When I was stationed in Germany I rented an apartment in a farm house directly across from what was a LW Kaserne. The owners of the farmhouse took their wagons into the base after the Americans pulled out following liberating the town and filled them with anything useful including tools, bedding, furniture and a LW overcoat that the son wore on his tractor when it was cold out. They still were using many of these items including LW plates and silverware in 1987.