SS NCO tunic

[Glenn McInnes]

How is the tress on the rank tab attached? looks like some kind of staple? the folded ends are clearly visable. I have not seen this before, IMO it looks like the tress was added at a later date.

It was added due to raise in rank by stitching it on at either end. Looks like a nice original jacket.



Glenn

[nutmeg]

Looks like a nice original tunic. I personally would not add the cuffband. To do so would throw suspicion on the other insignia which looks nice and original. It looks fine as is.

[Robert H]

A very nice very rar W-SS Uniform Jacke, you don´t find SS tunics often at all who are untouched. And for my view also when they are all already often very expensive and you see from many many tunics one original tunic with out any questions, I think they are for how realy hard original ones are to find underpriced.

[Panzer Rob]

Looks like a nice original tunic. I personally would not add the cuffband. To do so would throw suspicion on the other insignia which looks nice and original. It looks fine as is.

I agree

[Scott A. Hess]

Thomas brought up what I think and believe to be a valid point re the rank tresse on he rank tab on this piece..as this is the first I've seen where the tresse was added ex post facto..all be it pre war or
post.I certainly couldn't say which. My question is two fold. First..it has been my impression/opinion based upon the unissued tunics I have and have seen that the ONLY thing standard em tunics were issued with out of the factory (during mid to late war years) was the sleeve
eagle. This is based upon the unissued pieces I have.the ones I've seen from vets.and from other sources where it ws obvious the tunics were real and unissued...nothing had been removed.and the only piece affixed and properly was the eagle. As a side note..I have heard other high end ss collectors opine that the sleeve eagles were added AFTER completion of the jacket..which seems to me to be incorrect...as its apparant to anyone with sewing experience that it takes much more time and effort to do so..and the obvious choice would be to put it on while the sleeve is not closed and thus the seamstress dosnt' have to try to manipulate the whole jacket around the machine to affix it..seems obvious. The unissued ss surcoat in mint unissued condition which I obtained from M. Beaver Beaver before his death is also constructed in such a way that it would beimpossible to correctly afix the eagle after the jacket was finished. However..my original question..what are the thoughts and consensus re the application prior to issue of of the ruinic and the blank collar tab? Specifically it would appear to make sense to NOT affix the blank collar tab until after issue as it was stil uncertain as to the ultimate wearer's rank..and thus if the blank colar tab was presetn..it would have be taken off..and if litzen necessary..applied..and resewn.which is not very effecient and would negate the rank collar tabs seenfor sale..both em/nco and officer..where it is clearly
evident that the rank litzen on the collar tabe was sewn on the reverse of the tab and not as is shown on this parrticular jacket..not that it could not have been done..that is..the person promoted and rather than take the tab off..simply affix the litzen in this manner...so my long winded question..when were the rank and runes applied..at depot level at time of issue to soldier..which would be my opinion..or at time of manufacture?

[nutmeg]

I believe you are correct. I have at least one army tunic where the pocket has been partially applied over the bottom of the eagle indicating it was sewn on before the jacket was assembled. Have seen some others. It it really the most sensible way to do it , especially when time is a constraint. I would imagine they had some sort of templates to guide the seamstress sewing the eagles onto the unfinished cut out sleeves.

[Scott A. Hess]

Hello Nutmeg.. I have never thought about the idea of a template..that makes a heck of a lot of sense... as on the SS sleeve arms..the seamstress would need to know how to properly align the ealge with the rest of the sleeve for proper height but also proper horizontal alignment with the sleeve so when the wearere is wearing the jacket the eagle is straight flush with the hoizontal line of the arm..and the bird neither sags or is lopsided in either direction..what do you think re application of the runesand rank collar tab? it would seem to make perfect sense re expediency to affix after manufacture..that is..after the jacket leaves the storage depot..say dachau for example. it would be consistent with everything the army and SS did to crank out as many as possible as quickly as possible..and avoid waste..ie. on army and SS tunics the shoulder straps and not sewn in..and the collar litzen without waffenfarbe...so as to avoid the order for "1000 white infantry...500 panzer grenadier..250 signals..and 250 cav..with various nco and em grades on the boards"..easier to just order 1000 straight em tunics without shoudler straps..the generiz litzen as they did.and affix the proper shoulder straps at the time it was given to the soldier..I believe when they still were issuing sew in shoulderstraps the jackets left the factory with the seam on the shoulder still open. But later..obviuilsy with the slide on straps..any waffenfarbe and rank could be applied to any generic em tunic..this same line of reasoning would seem to cross over to SS...generic em tunics with only eagles...so rank and runic could be affixed after it was determined the soldiers rank..and unit..be it freiwilligen..or straignt ss...ad rank tab applied also when issued to the soldier to conform to his appropriate rank.

[nutmeg]

I imagine with machines they would cut dozens of sleeves (maybe more) at one cut with stacked layers of material . They would need to produce thousands of uniforms per day. You probably had a few dozen workers who sewed nothing but eagles 14 hours a day.

[Scott A. Hess]

Hello Nutmeg.of this Im sure.and the fact that many workers did nothing but sleeve eagles all day probably accounts for some sloppy work..as one would ge down right bord doing the same thing for hours on end in the conditions they worked in..IM still trying to assess when the rank and runic tabs were affixed...I just wish I could find some wartime pics of these darn things (ss in particular) being made..which is probably next to impossible. Im sure eveyone has seen this set of pics in "the way of the uniform" depicting Peek and Clopenburg manufacture..they just left out the gals sewing on the insignia..unfortunately! There are between 30-40 women sewing here and Im not sure if the "assembly" belt in the middle was moving..but would suspect so since it would seem hard to access it from the middle..and moving would tend to encourage speedier production..but its just a guess on my part.

[Scott A. Hess]

I think this picture would suppor the SS jackets being issued without any rank or runic tabs affixed if the logic here in the luft collecting and manufacture crosses over to SS ..which it should given efforts at expediency and effecieny..here as with Luft jackets I've seen that are unissued only the rank tabs are affixxed..so the prospective soldier has to only affix the proper number of gulls to the tabs to indicate the rank. AS this was standard...that is..the gulls could be affixed right over the rank tabs on both collars regardless of which branch (waffenfarbe) and rank..one through four gulls..this would seem to support in SS clothing manufacture that affixing the blank rank collar would not be the most effecient and expedient and easier thing to do given that the prospective soldier if litizen is required has to sew on the litzen..remove the rank board to do so..as in the vast majority of tabs I've seen its clear the litzen is applied before application to the collar..same would seem to be true with the runic tab...as the same jacket could go to a true ss division of a freiwilligen division which would then affix a non germanic ss tab..just some thoughts.

[John Pic]

All very interesting but it means little. You can sew an eagle on without taking the sleeve apart. Ive seen it done on re-enactor tunics and you can do it with a zigzag in the correct position wing tops flush with the corner of the lower pockets. All it takes is a good way to mark its position.
That litzen is hand applied.Now think about it,a soldier is out in the field or even home on leave and gets a promotion to save money and not have to wait for what may be his only uniform to get professionally upgraded he has the company tailor do a quick fix by hand. Officers did it quite often look at this and this can be found in period photos.
People go an awful long way to nit pick with something that really has no real evident faults to point to its possibly being post war done.But too often I have never seen one single similar piece offered for critique by those members.You cannot rely on "textbook" info to solve every slight difference in the tailoring process of the Third Reich.

[Scott A. Hess]

John..unfortunately..I think you miss the point entirely..why dosnt that surprise me. Im NOT nitpicking about THIS tunic..the nco..in fact..I think I said it probably was an upgrade for promotion..Im not talking about some renactors applying sleeve eagles to a few hundred repro tunics..I know a skillful tailor/seamstress can affix a eagle to a completed jacket ..I know several that can do it and well enought to fools you.me..and probably jsut about anybody. What Im talking about it the mass production of ss tunics during war time..and and what stage the eagle was affixed to the tunic during wartime manufacture..I think I made that quite clear in my postings and question. Im not casting any dispersion on this tunic...however..I do start with the supposition that the insignia on any ss tunic may be postwar applied..and look for clues to support the notion that the insignia indeed may be wartime affixed..sort of working backwards. Howver.my posting re the question of tunic application are directed in general as wartime mass production..not what some reenactors or clever tailors can do.

[Donald Abenheim]

Jawohl

My Oregonian colleague makes much sense. When I retire, I shall take up life in either Berlin or Vienna, whereupon I shall apprentice myself to a tailor and learn all these secrets. I do own tailoring hand books, actually, that I bought from Gerard Stezelberger. These depict a rather different world from the kind of Walmart, McDonalds, Fordist production line mentality fostered by some here (not in this file, of course). In the German army of yore, that is, until 1939, there were Bekleidungsaemter (plural....) which created the Proben of various items, which were then distributed to contractors, who reverse engineered them as well as making them to a written specification. The entire process is wrought with chance for variation and much diversity because, not the least, it was a decentralized system----not Microsoft, really by any stretch. The Peek Cloppenburg images are marvelous, but this large outfit was surely atypical of how many uniforms were made or altered, as well. (I just bought some really good sweathers at P & K in Vienna, actually... Euros 29 for things that here in Silicon Valley (?!) cost a hundred bucks and wear out in eighteen months...) Once more, buy the Schlicht/Kraus book on Reichswehr uniforms to get a sense of this all. Also look at the RZM list of licenses to see the wide variety of outfits that applied for licenses: small, large, handicrafts, industrial, usw. JPic has a gift with his empirical powers as well as the material he has dissected, bissected and whatevered over the years. Finally, I am sure that many relevant files on all of this are in central Europe and waiting for some enterprising scholar to unearth them. The Beaver books are marvelous, important accomplishments, but they are scarcely the last word on all of this. For those with extra Ducats and a spirit of adventure, go to Zentralverzeichnis antiquarischer Buecher and seek: W. Leibold, Das Schneiderhandwerk (Nordhausen, n.d. (Ca.1935/6). If you can internalize 20% of what is in this encyclopaedia of tailoring, you will know rather a lot. I have never bothered to read all of it, save it does describe SA and SS uniforms of the era. Sapere aude. In reading my St. Cruz colleague's post, Wilkins describes the steps in making a peaked cap. Someone should find us a file of Uniformenmarkt as well as whatever periodicals of the Konfektions- und Modehandwerk in III. Reich.

[John Pic]

I dont know,why doesnt that surprise you ingsoc39 whoever you are? Do my posts regularly annoy you?Sorry if they do its just I am a man of simplicity and getting to the facts.
I simply cant understand why such a lengthy post on the manufacturing process complete with photos because a litzen was sewn to a tunic by hand? Im wondering what your post has to do with the tunic shown.Are you explaining to us how it was made? I understand the initial question about the litzen but to me it seems simple, its just how it was done on this piece by whoever once wore it.IMO it adds more to the authenticity than not. Why did your post shift from litze to the eagle? I dont think that all tunics were made with the eagle sewn because I have an Army style Model 36 tunic that never ever had an eagle applied to the breast but does have an SS eagle.There are no holes no signs of holes even under intense magnification,so I think it depends on where it was made and the process used there.

[Scott A. Hess]

Geezz.sometimes its truely like talking to a wall. My initial post and question was quite simple..I dont think it takes a rhodes scholar or even one with 10th grade education to figure that out. I simply posed the question..open to debate and discussion as to WHEN in the manufacture processof mid to late war SS tunics the rank and ss runes (and eagles) were affixed to the tunic...at time of manufacture..at depot level..or otherwise. The posting of the Nco tunic was simply a jumping off point for the discussion..go back and read..all but a bit more closely..that my opinion was that the litzen in that tunic could very well have been done pre 45 and as a promition...I wasnt nitpicking..or criticizing at all. And yes..as a matter of fact John..I've found your post/replies to often time be hostile..missing the point..rude..and callling controversy..and as in this thread..where none existed. I simply asked a queestion..the fact that you chose to interpret it as nitpicking and casting dispersion when none was written..obviously.only serves to highlight my point..which is obvious..that you are causing controversy when none was written or implied.