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    Flammenwerfer! Flames, skulls and stuff


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    This is a well-known (probably the best known) Freikorps photo.............but does anyone know what the rest of the design on the sides and back of the helmet was supposed to represent? I don't.

    There was an identical helmet for sale on eBay a while back. The designs on the sides are profile views of skulls facing backward. In that photo you're seeing the rounded back of the skull and the edge of the lower jaw.

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    Postwar image of a flamethrower operator of Reichswehr-Brigade 15, who wears a nonofficial Totenkopf in the Sturmbataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) position above the cuff. He wears a cloth cover on both his helmet and on the Wex flamethrower, and he carries a makeshift stick igniter or fuse (behelfmässigen Stockzünder) consisting of a board with a bundle of kerosene-soaked rags on the end. This was lit with matches and used to ignite large flamethrowers when the automatic igniter burned out.

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    There was an identical helmet for sale on eBay a while back. The designs on the sides are profile views of skulls facing backward. In that photo you're seeing the rounded back of the skull and the edge of the lower jaw.

    Aha!

    I see the profile now.

    Thanks, Thomas. :cheers:

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    Postwar image of a flamethrower operator of Reichswehr-Brigade 15, who wears a nonofficial Totenkopf in the Sturmbataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) position above the cuff. He wears a cloth cover on both his helmet and on the Wex flamethrower, and he carries a makeshift stick igniter or fuse (behelfmässigen Stockzünder) consisting of a board with a bundle of kerosene-soaked rags on the end. This was lit with matches and used to ignite large flamethrowers when the automatic igniter burned out.

    Now...........THAT is beginning to look more like the sort of unit that might have worn the non-regulation black totenkopf that started this thread. :love:

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    This skull was in an auction today. The seller stated, it came from the same source like the Freikorps badge Chiemgau (Oberbayern).

    Ideas, what this skull could be? Maybe too large for cap skull? A sleeve skull? Or for another use?

    Edited by Sergeant 08
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