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One of my favorite "spoils of war"


Eric Queen
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Do any of the old timers here remember Dick Deeter? Dick was a friend of my dad's back in the old days. Dick ran a number of ad's in the southern California area and picked up all kinds of stuff in the 50's and 60's. One of those ads was responded to by an Intelligence officer who assisted in the interrogation of civilian workers at the Dachau concentration camp right after the liberation. During his assignment there this officer was one of several who had access to the clothing and insignia inventories warehoused there near the camp. Not sure if everyone knows this or not but later in the war Dachau produced all kinds of SS cloth headgear, insignia (tabs/bands, etc.) and uniforms. This was one such uniform which made its way from a box in the warehouse to this officers B-4 bag. It was pictured in a 1969 issue of MILITARIA magazine and eventually Dick traded it to Art for a rare Lugar. Art sold it to Jerome when he sold out and decades later I was able to get it from Jerome.

 

Just thought it was interesting to illustrate the fact that so many of these brings back came warehouses/stockpiles and not directly from the battlefield or prisoners.

DSC_1427 x.jpg

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As an interesting historical note, these smocks never did make there way out of the warehouse and to the troops they were made for. SS paratroopers were trained at the jump school in Papa (Hungary) and were issued Luftwaffe jump smocks (as illustrated by the portrait photo below).

E Queen SS 3 x.jpg

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vintageproductions

There are some names from the past.

Jerome comes in my shop frequently and talks about Dick, and when he got Art's camo collection.

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Bob, I think I like this piece more because of the connection to these guys (from the good ole days) than for what it is (if that makes sense). There is a connection to my dad as well because he remembers seeing it when it first surfaced.

 

Spoke with Art just two days ago. Still going strong.

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Interesting that the eagle is on the breast as opposed to the arm

 

The real SS (paratrooper) smocks will always have the bird on the breast. Sometimes individual paratroopers removed the Luftwaffe bird from the breast of their issued Luftwaffe smocks and hand sewed an SS bird to the sleeve (have seen three cases of this). One such example below.

E Queen SS 1 x.jpg

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I used to see great stuff like that at the old shows in the Chicago area back in the day. I remember wondering why the eagle was placed there also. Nice piece Eric.

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vintageproductions

Bob, I think I like this piece more because of the connection to these guys (from the good ole days) than for what it is (if that makes sense). There is a connection to my dad as well because he remembers seeing it when it first surfaced.

 

Spoke with Art just two days ago. Still going strong.

 

Totally get it, as those names are about as old school as you can get.

 

I run into Art frequently at the grocery store as he lives just a few blocks over from me.

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vintageproductions

Really Owen, you think that is cooler then the Para doll wearing camo coveralls I bought from Eric?

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blitzkrieg gsd

Very nice for sure, definitely don't see them like that everyday. I would also like to know about how many of them came out of that warehouse stash. Were these ever types of smocks issued for ware?

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Jerome had 4 of these. Two with original eagles and two without. I bought the two with eagles. Not sure what he did with the other two. About a dozen or so of these in collections worldwide I would say. Less than half have the original eagles.

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i know of 2 of those that came out of the northern ky,cinncy area,guy i re-enacted with had one,got it off of the vet that brought it back,vet used the other for duck hunting(really!)

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