M35 SD Heer reissued - Volunteer helmet!?

[schraub]

Hello,
here`s the brand new addition to my growing collection .
Reissued M35 SD Heer, marked E.F.64 / 21746. Liner and chinstrap dd 1942, the helmet is total unmessed with and in an good condition. What makes this helmet so special is an scraped away former handpainted tricolor shield in the colors Blue-White-Red. This indicates that this helmet was surely in use by an foreign Wehrmacht volunteer (French or Dutch guy). The helmet was picked up 1945 in Rotterdam, were during this time many german soldiers from different branches were on the way...

I´m very happy with this nice helmet and thanks to the kind forum member who sold this helmet to me...

Cheers Stephan

Here are the pics:

[schraub]

#2

[schraub]

bird

[schraub]

the scraped tricolor - see the differnt color remnats and in the center the nice old patina which turned the blank steel of the helmet to an light brown...

[schraub]

inside with liner

[schraub]

chinstrap and details

[ROBB]

Nice lid as right as rain ,a real one looker ,Rob

[Rolf D.]

Weren't foreign volunteer shields horizontal? Not diagonal as shown by the wear pattern?

[Theodor]

In Baer's book this shield is given as: Volunteer Legion "Nederland" - with these diagonal colors. In his book it is given in pair with SS decal, but maybe being with a Heer decal is not a problem I think. I like this helmet very much!

[schraub]

Hi,

thanks for your comments so far...

As the decal was an handpainted one and not an real decal, I have no problems with this kind of graphic... Look, the shape of the shield was scrached into te fieldgray paint, before the tricolor was painted - this makes it much easier for the soldier to give it an good look and shape...

Stephan

[william r match]

Nice acquisition Stephan.

Billy

[Rolf D.]

On page 374, in Baer's book, there is the decal listed, and it goes from top to bottom, Orange, white, light blue. Not Light Blue, white and orange. I have a feeling that if it is in fact a foreign legion, it would be France as it is red not orange on the helmet. But even then, the colors are vertical going from left to right, dark blue (compared to light blue on your helmet), white and then red.

Nederland:
Orange
white
light blue

France:
B W R
l h e
u i d
e t
e

[Luftm40]

I'm missing something here. To me this helmet is just an M35 Reissue where a new adler was period added over the reissue paint, and then the original shield was excavated out of the paint post war...although they removed most of it in the process???

[WalterB]

I'm missing something here. To me this helmet is just an M35 Reissue where a new adler was period added over the reissue paint, and then the original shield was excavated out of the paint post war...although they removed most of it in the process???

Andy, I was (am?) a bit confused myself. I think if you look closely at the shield, there are some flakes of blue rather than black. I think this is what they are referring to.

[Luftm40]

To me that just looks like the remnants of the standard tri color decal that would have been on the M35 before the reissue paint was applied. The two darker colors (black and red) were typically printed over the white, and the "blue" looks to me like the black field that was scraped or sanded to partially reveal the white underneath...hence the blue hue. There has definitely been something "excavated" on that side..to each his own, but I hope there wasn't a premium price attached to this one....