I'd love to share with all my friends the new entry in my footwear collection;
it's a pair of mint, 1940-dated reiterstiefel...of a type which is seldom encountered, in the that the shaft has a reinforcing layer of leather going from the middle of the calf to the edge of the boot in order to better withstand the wear and tear of the boot rubbing against the saddle.It's believed (and that could be comfirmed by photographic evidence!),that these boots were issued to WSS Horsemen only, but I think it's only a rarer model of the classical reiterstiefel.What is true is that boots without nails (this pair of boots were still tied together and came out of the factory without nails and that would suggest a pair of stiefel which could have also used for ausgehen as it was the case with nailless knobelbecher) were preferred by the soldiers who had to ride hard and long and fast, for a leather sole was less prone to slip off the stirrup...that's the reason why Italian Cavalrymen used boots without nails during their combat sorties and the mythical charges on the Russian Front during 1942/43.
They're surely nothing to write home about but they nevertheless remain a very nice pair of a not so common variation of a not so common WW2 German combat footwear!
Hope you enjoy
Manny
it's a pair of mint, 1940-dated reiterstiefel...of a type which is seldom encountered, in the that the shaft has a reinforcing layer of leather going from the middle of the calf to the edge of the boot in order to better withstand the wear and tear of the boot rubbing against the saddle.It's believed (and that could be comfirmed by photographic evidence!),that these boots were issued to WSS Horsemen only, but I think it's only a rarer model of the classical reiterstiefel.What is true is that boots without nails (this pair of boots were still tied together and came out of the factory without nails and that would suggest a pair of stiefel which could have also used for ausgehen as it was the case with nailless knobelbecher) were preferred by the soldiers who had to ride hard and long and fast, for a leather sole was less prone to slip off the stirrup...that's the reason why Italian Cavalrymen used boots without nails during their combat sorties and the mythical charges on the Russian Front during 1942/43.
They're surely nothing to write home about but they nevertheless remain a very nice pair of a not so common variation of a not so common WW2 German combat footwear!
Hope you enjoy
Manny
!
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