NSDAP Organisation What uniform is he wearing?

[Gordon Craig]

A closer view of the collar tabs and shoulder boards.

[Gordon Craig]

The back of the tunic. The buttons on the back are actually belt support devices. The previous picture that I posted have belt support devices on the back of the jacket in silver.

[Gordon Craig]

Gentlemen,

I've spent the last few days exchanging emails with some Forestry collectors in Germany. I sent them the picture and asked for their comments re the grey collar tabs and the eagle. The concensis of opinion seems to be that this Forester was co-opted from the Gemeinde (Community Forestry-grey collar tabs) to the military and had time to add an eagle to his tunic but not time to change the collar tabs before the picture was taken. Another example of how authentic pictures can lead to much confusion by collectors years later.

My collector friends in Germany have asked for more information from the Soldbuch. Perhaps more pictures of other pages. They are very interested in this soldbuch. Also, NAXOS, do you have any other other documentation for this individual such as a drivers licence? You mentioned in your early posts that using a reference book you assigned a rank of Kriegsassessor. How did you reach that conclusion? I mentioned that his rank should be Forstassessor. My friends in Germany have said that Kriegsassessor was a title used only in the military administration service and would not have been used within the Foresty Service.

So that makes collar tab assignment for the different branches of the Forestry Services as;

green = state forestry; grey = community forestry; brown = private forestry;black = military forestry.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited November 22, 2009 by Gordon Craig

[Naxos]

Gentlemen,

I've spent the last few days exchanging emails with some Forestry collectors in Germany. I sent them the picture and asked for their comments re the grey collar tabs and the eagle. The concensis of opinion seems to be that this Forester was co-opted from the Gemeinde (Community Forestry-grey collar tabs) to the military and had time to add an eagle to his tunic but not time to change the collar tabs before the picture was taken. Another example of how authentic pictures can lead to much confusion by collectors years later.

My collector friends in Germany have asked for more information from the Soldbuch. Perhaps more pictures of other pages. They are very interested in this soldbuch. Also, NAXOS, do you have any other other documentation for this individual such as a drivers licence? You mentioned in your early posts that using a reference book you assigned a rank of Kriegsassessor. How did you reach that conclusion? I mentioned that his rank should be Forstassessor. My friends in Germany have said that Kriegsassessor was a title used only in the military administration service and would not have been used within the Foresty Service.

So that makes collar tab assignment for the different branches of the Forestry Services as;

green = state forestry; grey = community forestry; brown = private forestry;black = military forestry.

Regards,

Gordon

Most interesting Gordon, thank you so much for the information.

Gordon, I have only the divers license shown above for this man in my possession. I do however have some details of his career from his Soldbuch that I don't own. I will post all the information I have including a much better scan of the picture when I get back from Europe.

Hardy

[Naxos]

In the Soldbuch his rank is Kriegsassessor.

His units were: Feldkommandantur 531, Wehrwirtschaft Kom. Nord Pleskau, Wirtschaftskomando 307 and with Infanterie-Regiment 116 in Marburg.

Edited November 22, 2009 by Naxos

[Gordon Craig]

Hardy,

Thanks for the info. This should stir the pot in Germany! I'll pass on the info to my collector friends in Germany and see what they make of it.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

Hardy,

I haven't had a response from Germany yet but I have done some research on my own, using the information you supplied from the Soldbuch, and I think we can come to some reasonably firm conclusions from that. My research is below (excuse the English-the German to English translations are bit wonky but everyone should be able to understan what is written) and my conclusions from the research will follow;

"Feldkommandanturen:

The Feldkommandantur supervises the administration of the occupied areas, the German Kreiskommandanturen and the German occupation troops. The staff is also Justiziarstelle for German occupation troops and the native population. The staff was responsible for the following activities establishment of the collusion, warning before enemy propaganda, propaganda for new films, establishment of service times, administration of French workers (in all occupied territories), lost-clothings, lost messages, air protection, medical on-call service, urban baths, protective inoculations, charwomen, transfer of service areas, exercises, shooting ranges, sports fields, hunt, service clubs, searches, concerts etc. the staff leads the supply of accomodation, the supply of rented vehicles and of indigenous labor. It has a staff up to 16 coworkers with the departments: Internal administration; Nourishing and agriculture; commercial economy; Work input; Traffic and possibly also Forestry.

Feldkommandantur 531 was set up on 2 August 1939 in Berlin Zehlendorf, in the military district III. The staff was set up as exercise unit. On 26 August 1939 the staff in the army package B (Berlin) was mobilized as an army troop. The staff was used at first under the 8th army in Southern Poland. On 13 December 1939 the staff was moved into the west. There the staff of the 2nd army was subordinated. Starting from 1 July 1940 the staff was subordinate to the military commander France. Of this the staff was used in the military administration district C in Chalons sur Marne. There the staff was responsible for the section Marne. (In 1940/41 it was renamed Feldkommandatur 531 V)1945 were the staff under the 1st army in the Saarpfalz in use. The Ersatzgestellung of the staff was noticed at first by the infantry replacement battalion 50. Starting from 1 April 1940 the infantry replacement battalion 457, late infantry replacement battalion 457 took over, this task

Feldkommandanturen had two structures depending on whether the Army had responsibility for public administration in the occupied area or not. The Army had this responsibility in France and Belgium; elsewhere civilian authorities exercised public administration authority. In other areas, such as southern France and Italy, where there was still a nominally functioning national administration, the Feldkommandanturen received different designations as "Hauptverbindungsstäbe" to indicate that they were actually liaison staffs, rather than administrative organizations. For Feldkommandanturen, the difference was connoted by the addition of a (V) (Vewaltung) after the unit designiation. (This explanation was taken from a forum and the writer did not include the General Government and other occupied areas which did have Field Administrative units)

Werhwirtschaft Kom. Nord Pleskau - I can find nothing on this unit on the net except that Pleskau was in Russia and would have been in the area of Heersgruppe Nord.

Wirtschaft Kommando 307- the same thing goes here. Probably another administrative unit of some kind.

Infantrie Regiment 116 Marbur-destroyed at Chişinau, Romania in August of 1944. Remnants of this regiment were used to form 9.Volkesgrenadierdivision".

All of the administrative units above appear to have been concerned with administering occupied territories for the military and the civilian economy. In the para on Feldkomandaturen it indicates that they were responsible for the administration of Forestry (it says possibly Forestry but from the soldbuch we have confirmed that they did have a Forestry Officer assigned to them). The second para on Feldkomandatur 531 says they were made army troops in August of 1939. From these two comments, plus other comments in my research, we can conclude a number of things;

1-the chap pictured in the drivers licence was an administrator of commercial foresty and would therefore be more likely to wear grey collar tabs than black;

2-as a member of the Heer he would be entitled to wear the national symbol on his uniform;

3-as an administrator of forestry and not directly involved in forestry work his title would more correctly be Kreigsassessor instead of Forstassessor.

4-despite what the regulations say about Heer Foresters wearing black collar tabs this is not a hard and fast rule;

5-the uniform as pictured was correct in all aspects.

This is another example of where collectors might declare a uniform in a picture is not correct when it obviously is. We should never get too wrapped up in what regulations say. There are lots of period pictures that indicate all kinds of exceptions to the rule existed and the regulations could not cover all possibilities.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited November 25, 2009 by Gordon Craig

[Naxos]

Gordon, thank you so much for the interesting contribution!

Here is a better scan of Bremer

[Naxos]

Front page of license and detail

Feldpostnummer: 29660 = 1942 Feldkommandantur 533 (FK533) Militärverwaltungsbezirk C in Troyes, Department Aube

Edited December 23, 2009 by Naxos