Bavarian / German shoulderstraps ?

[Kev in Deva]

Hallo Gents,

in the immortal words of Telly Savalas i.e. Kojak

A Picture paints a thousand words baby!

I am thinking a Bavarian connection?

Ricky any ideas??

Kevin in Deva.

[Guest Rick Research]

Yup. Beamter-Stellvertreter (unsure of exact title which would depend upon branch) I think from the garrison administration branch.

[Kev in Deva]

Yup. Beamter-Stellvertreter (unsure of exact title which would depend upon branch) I think from the garrison administration branch.

Hallo Ricky, great info, many thanks but can you give any more info on exactly what his job would be, to us with no clue to such a rank / position. And is it possible to date the shoulder straps to any particular time period?

Kevin in Deva. :beer:

[Guest Rick Research]

I'd say from the cloth material, end of the Great War.

[Chip]

There were two shades of blue used as an underlay, but I agree with Rick that this is probably the lighter shade used for garrison's administration. The blue lines in the Borte do not indicate Bavaria. All Beamten boards with this type of braid had blue lines. It was the color of the officials. In some braids, the color did indicate the state (Offizierstellvertreter for instance), but this was not the case with official's braid.

In all garrisons and troop training sites this group administered the real estate and buildings. They were subordinate to the Korpsintendanturen, who were responsible for all of the administrative branches/duties within the army corps.

Chip

[Guest Rick Research]

:cheers: Chip!

I should just comment that while these sort of people seem very TRY finding exact specific rank insignia like this if you "need" them. These sorts of boards are a whole sub-collecting specialty (at least judging by the German dealers' prices) and much harder to find than any old generic combatant Stellvertreter equivalent.

[Chip]

Rick,

You are absolutely correct about this area of shoulder insignia collecting. The area of Beamten is a mine field and a huge topic, what with all of the wartime changes. Kraus devotes no less than 150 pages to the subject of Beamten in his two volume, 989 page work on the uniforms of the German army 1907-1918. It is also the least understood area in collecting circles. Part of the reason, as you suggest, is that these were not your normal "combat" troops with all "glory" that is associated with such. Thus, there is a general lack of interest (except by me and a handful of others).

You may have noticed that this pair is unissued, and for some reason, many of the Beamten pieces on today's market fall into this category. Obviously, the number of Beamten boards souvenired by opposing front line troops is about nil, especially when compared to the combat branches. I think a cache of these must have been found in the vast warehouses discovered by the occupying Americans when they entered Coblenz. One warehouse there had what was reported as tens of thousands of examples of pre-trench helmet headgear.

Regarding rarity, I could not hazard a guess as to how Beamten strap numbers compare with those of Offizierstellvertreter, but I can tell you that Offizierstellvertreter boards are few and far between. Regarding the German dealers prices, I have noticed those too, but I have also noticed that these pieces are still there year after year. Wanna guess why?

Best regards,

Chip

Edited July 7, 2008 by Chip