Sepp Dietrich's Cap and Boots

[JAYP]

I just returned from the West Point Museum and they have on display what are supposed to be Sepp Dietrich's Cap and boots.I don't know about the boots but the cap looks like a bad repro to me.Jay Parisi

[JAYP]

Boots

[Gary Wood]

Jay,

I am with you on that looks like some switching has gone on there!!!!!!!!

cheers,

Gary

[ReichsHeini]

This has been discuused I believe on the GDC forum a few years back. The cap is not anything like the three visors he is commonly pictured in either.

I believe two of them are in prominennt collections here in U.S.
Jerry

[Erich B.]

cap

If I remember correctly, Steve Wolfe has one of his visor caps (and his overcoat).
Erich

[J Howland]

In the early seventies, I was fortunate to have an almost day long tour of the everything at the West Point museum from the exhibit cases out front to the storage rooms way in the back. In amongst a whole rack of German uniforms, I remember handling a "worn in the field" combat tunic that was supposed to have been Dietrich's as well as another tunic that belonged to a mountain troops general (maybe Ringel?)

I remember being told by a curator that any cadet, at least at that point in time, was permitted to sign out virtually any artifact in the West Point museum collection and take it to his barracks rooms overnight - much like you or I might sign out a copy of the DaVinci Code from our local library.

It is my understanding that this practice is no longer followed.

Jim

[panzerzacker]

Wow! That's a rough lookin' eagle at WESTPOINT? I wouldn't be surprised if they were funneling things out the back in order to fund the war. Maybe it's his early pre-war cap. I seem to recall him having a prussian skull originally, and a bullion eagle at some point, but I don't know if I've seen them together. What do I know?

[nutmeg]

West Point has another very nice Waffen SS officer's cap in storage with white piping but I' dont if it has a history. The curators there now are excellent but the previous ones in the 50s and 60s did sometimes change insignias on tunics, caps, etc. for display purposes. The stuff was plentiful at that time and who cared? Also they have received donations of collections which had some bad items included.

[suumcuique]

Didn't Sepp Dietrich use the Heer general's eagle in gold bullion on his caps as opposed to the SS eagle?

[J Howland]

...The curators there now are excellent but the previous ones in the 50s and 60s did sometimes change insignias on tunics, caps, etc. for display purposes. The stuff was plentiful at that time and who cared? ...

On one visit to West Point in the mid-seventies, I asked if I could see how a HJ divisional cuff title was sewn on to a W-SS tunic that was part of a special D Day exhibit. I figured that it would be an excellent chance to see how such things were really attached. The curator told me that there wouldn't be any point in my taking a closer look: the band was actually held on with pins - they didn't have an HJ uniform to display, so they just put one together from "spare parts" in the museum.

Jim