joerookery

Thank you all very much for your thoughts! Still no joy.

No city location, and they seem to have provided helmets throughout Germany. Your idea is really really interesting.

Does anybody know more about this company or the method? Fiber helmets were often made by what is believed to be this company. Does anyone have any information as to whether this was actually a company that assembled Pickelhaubes were simply a fiber maker? It seems as though the company name was used in the production of other fiber articles but when you combine it with the word patent??? Did they sell assembled products? Did they just produce fiber bodies? There seem to be in number of anomalies in some of these helmets including two known examples of fiber helmets with green underneath both visors. I just can't seem to find a lot of these guys... help me Mister Wizard.

Going through W?rttemberg's award rolls, I don't find any to this as a BATTALION, suggesting even though the STAFF had that designation, the individual companies which composed it were still considered distinct entities at that level. If we separate STAFF from an entire composite battalion...

This entire battalion thing makes my head hurt! Great discussion.

If certain parties in Germany will quit taking all my money and sending me goodies

Amen Brother!

Thank you again! One little bit of title trivia that I discovered in my research is that a chief burgomaster was called "Magnificence," for Hamburg and L?beck. Not positive about Bremen. I tried to get my wife to call me that but it did not fly!

Thank you that is good to know! Just could not find a good reference. God bless.

VR/Joe

Prussian officers of the rank of Generalleutnant or higher were referred to as ?Exzellenz ?

Thanks in advance for any information!

Rick Research recently helped me immensely by (in addition to other things) pointing out some spelling errors in an upcoming work. While the proper spelling is second nature to this Titan, for a mere mortal like me I often had problems. I thought I would add this paragraph from the introduction of the book to this forum just to show why I had such a problem. There are other reasons for my shortcomings, but this one is tough for an English speaker to initially overcome. I thought it might interest some of you.

One of the single most frustrating English language anomalies when dealing with Imperial Germany is that the language was not standard. We have been publicly scolded that German people could just look things up in the dictionary. This is a myth that takes some background. There were a slew of dictionaries and official language uses that followed state or dialectic lines. In 1876 Prussia tried to bring this together, but the attempt was rejected by the various states. In 1879 Bavaria published their own grammar guide, followed by Austria and Prussia a year later. Using the Bavarian and Prussian rules Konrad Duden published a more widely accepted dictionary. This spread slowly and it was not accepted by the states, except for W?rttemberg. In order to make sure a uniform grammar and spelling was adopted in all German speaking states including Austria and Switzerland in June 1901 a second conference was called to further spelling and grammar reform (?Beratungen ?ber die Einheitlichkeit der deutschen Rechtschreibung).? Better known as II Orthographische Konferenz this received a much wider reception and in 1901 a lot of "th" were abolished and replaced by simple "t"(e.g. Thal or F?rstenthum). In several words and names (except Cassel and C?ln) "c" was replaced by "k". Many other letter "c" in words with a French background were turned into "z". The letter "i" with longer pronunciation were replaced by "ie". The standards became generally accepted and turned into official regulations by December 1902. However, the Kaiser initially opposed the change and official documents were supposed to be submitted written in both forms until 1911. The changes were not adopted by many publishers, who did not wish to change their typeset. That is why you may find different spelling in texts written between 1871 and 1918.

Bob,

Try this book.

Christian E.O. Millotat "Das preu?isch-deutsche Generalstabssystem"

published in Z?rich (Hochschulverlag der ETH) 2000

or

Bronsart v. Schellendorff "Der Dienst des Generalstabes" published in Berlin (E.S. Mittler) 1905

VR/Joe

Can you read german enough

yes and thank you again!

VR/Joe

What about the script about the Schlieffen-Plan?

Andreas

This is my nosiness asking if there is something I don't know about? I am always looking for discussions on this. Here is the last paragraph of one section of our upcoming book. Is it in-line with your script? Thanks!

There is a more recent work by Gro?, which throws a great deal of sand at the Zuber theory. This does two things: it prolongs the old debate and uses previously unused documents to cast a different light on the issue even though conventional wisdom states that the Prussian archives were destroyed in 1945. The premise of the total destruction of the archives has been disproved by finds in the Russian and eastern German archives, as well as other sources. This new study claims there really was a Schlieffen plan, systematically attacks all of Zuber?s claims and attempts to document it. I am sure that subsequent to this writing there will be a counterattack by Zuber. A recent paper by Terrence Holmes tries to put the issue to rest saying that Schlieffen needed only 90 divisions, not 96. Between this paper and the 2004 Potsdam symposium Zuber's opponents seem to have the upper hand and have shown a previously undisclosed map from the 1905 Denkschrift, written by Schlieffen that shows a wheel around the western edge of Paris. A copy of this map is located in the British national archives. As what exists of the old archive files is often found to be misfiled and often never looked at new discoveries seem always forthcoming.

VR/Joe

this has been very interesting. Thank you for your efforts.

Glenn,

Is it your thought that these Kapitulanten could join the Landwehrbezirke before they passed into the Landwehr themselves? As these positions were advertised, what did they say about "full-time employment" and pay? Based on the pay tables that I have there was no difference between the pay of a sergeant Kapitulanten or not. There was a huge change in the pay for a Gefr. Based on the pay table alone, a full-time sergeant would make less money than a temporary worker in the proletariat. Not much of an incentive to take the job, unless it was a bonus. Sort of like being in the American reserve where you would also have a full-time job.

These are the kinds of discussions I love, absolutely love! I do not pretend I know the final word on any of this but I have some more wood or sand to throw on the fire.

The movement of the individual. I don't have any real problem with internal migration, as there was a lot of it but there are a couple of interesting tidbits based on the documents. This guy is 25 and was a sergeant, which would regularly mean that he enlisted in the unit that he reported into. F?silier-Regiment F?rst Karl-Anton von Hohenzollern (1. Hohenzollernsches) Nr.40. It is not clear to me whether this individual lived in the regimental area in Baden or if their regiment recruited in the area where the individual lived. An option is that this individual was 25 years of age and in order to have completed seven years of Dienstpflicht and Enter the Landwehr at that young age. He would have had to have started Musterung at age 18, probably as a multi-year volunteer. That would square with the rank. However, if he was a volunteer he could have chosen the regiment, regardless of his geographic location. He was in the Landwehrbezirke for Brigade 57 which is located in Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen-a Prussian enclave, which for some reason soldiers from Baden Infantry Regiment 114 guarding the castle. This is geographically far away from where regiment was stationed in Baden.

Rank or position. My understanding based on the research of Stubbs, is that any NCO could be named in this position, but the promotion to the rank of Feldwebel did not happen until mobilization in the Landwehrbezirke. My understanding is that this was not full-time employment. Certainly on the pay of a sergeant you could not go far nor raise a family.

Citizenship. I don't believe that the document grants citizenship to Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Rather, I think it is a document, which characterizes the individual as coming from Mecklenburg-Schwerin and these passports were used extensively as a requirement for jobs. No passport equals no job. Citizenship in Mecklenburg-Schwerin I understand was very very difficult and quite different

Mecklenburg was the closest thing to medieval serfdom in Germany. Serfdom was eliminated in Mecklenburg in 1820. However, it was replaced by a citizenship system that was very similar to serfdom. Under the concept of serfdom, landowners were responsible for the workers when they became old or disabled. Under the new system landowners were only responsible to those workers who had been granted a "right of establishment" by the landowner. As a result, landowners kept few permanent workers, and granted the right of establishment to few. It was not a right of all residents of Mecklenburg, but rather a privilege granted by the landowner. A side result of this was that residents were not citizens of Mecklenburg as much as they were citizens of this city or village in which they got their right of establishment. Residents who did not have the right of establishment could not get married, start a permanent home, or have children. A large part of the population that was temporary laborers was refused the right of establishment by the ruling class for their whole lives. They were given only a limited right to residence - only for as long as they had work. As a result, it was fair to say that many Mecklenburgers were homeless inside their own country. The byproduct was that Mecklenburg had the third highest emigration rate in Europe. 261,000 Mecklenburgers left their home country (the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz) between 1820 and 1890. Without the right of establishment the lower classes did not have any prospects for the future in Mecklenburg.

Between 1850 and 1890 approximately 146,000 Mecklenburgers emigrated overseas, most going to the United States of America. This loss of population was most prevalent from the rural farm land. 88.5 percent of all emigrants came from rural areas. Most of them came from the manor houses of noble and titled big land-owners. Despite the emigration there still was a total population growth between 1830 and 1850. However, new births could not make up for the high number of emigrants between 1850 and 1905 and the population in the rural areas dropped by 25,000. After 1871 the number of people that moved overseas decreased and internal migration increased. More people that were willing to emigrate went to cities and industrial towns outside of Mecklenburg, such as the areas of Berlin. Almost 1/3 of the people, who were born in Mecklenburg, lived outside of their home state. There were 648,000 people living in Mecklenburg in 1914

Of course all of this could be just dead wrong! I find myself thanking Rick and others are participating in these discussions. If Rick had not posted these items I would not even get an intellectual stimulus this Saturday morning. So thank you all!

anyone have an approx date for the pic above?

Chris I would imagine it is 1914. This guy is not a J?ger but rather a Landsturm soldier. There was no such thing as a Hessian shako during WW1. This is an old-style shako that had been worn in Hesse quite a while ago which was required to be maintained. This had to be taken out of storage and used early in the war.

I have never seen it either -- it is a private purchase helmet cover, but it just leads to a lot of questions. I thought you would appreciate seeing it.

Sorry I should have included a size originally. At 5 cm x 5 cm it is exactly the same size as the other Landsturm large crosses. Sewing the crosses to the hat was one of the primary methods of attachment.

These crosses from W?rttemberg and Saxony have the same holes.

They are also the same size as the old-style shako cross but these were attached with loops and had no holes.

The issue is the date. All of the other ones I have seen use the date 1813. Why 1914?

http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/Landsturm.html

Does anyone know why this might be dated 1914? These crosses normally have the date 1813. I do not think it is a reproduction.

Thanks to Chip I was able to nab this one.

http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/Uberzug.htm

I am all ears on this one! I have much to learn, and it is very interesting. Good thread!

But these are fantastic! Like great little tidbits. Rick do you have anymore on this?

a Lithuanian "Little Big Horn" at Namajumi on 21.05.19

No sir, I don't know what unit. I do not even have a picture of him wearing the pilot's badge. The only picture I have is this one with an airplane in it but I think it is the wrong war.

Hi, I cannot tell you which state he is from, but I would not get too excited about the blue uniform. most of those kinds of pictures were taken in the depot system.

Could be shooting medals or for a folks march. But look at this guy's epaulets. Takes you back to Rick's comment about the picture.