RCandeias
Aftermath
Berlin, 1923. Less than five years after the end of the Great War, Germany economy lies in ruins. A disabled war veteran begs in the street dressed in his pre-war dunkelblau waffenrock.
A ribbon bar with several (unfortunately indistinguishable) awards is pinned to his chest, below it an Iron Cross 1st Class, and below the Cross a Wound Badge in Silver, awarded for three or four wounds or a severe wound such as the loss of a limb or eyesight.
Original: Deutsches Historisches Museum, BA 90/5740
Notes on the colours: The tunic has some discrepancies. The collar and cuffs are of different colours which I believe they shouldn’t be. It has no shoulder boards which would give us the unit if the number and/or cypher were visible or at least narrow down a bit the number of possible units.
The cuffs have piping which is also odd unless he was Foot artillery but in that case the cuffs should be black which clearly they are not. There is no discernible vertical frontal piping. To make things worse, in 1923 modern Panchromatic emulsion was already in use so without a reference, a starting point, I have no way to tell which emulsion was used. A pity that the red in the Reich kokarde is not visible.
I was, and still am, at a loss so I turned my attention to the cap. Here I was able to narrow down the hypothesis. The piping is clearly of a different colour from the band so, assuming that the emulsion was panchromatic, I narrowed it down to 2 possibilities: Sanitätstruppen (Medical troops) or Krankenwärter (Medical Attendants). I tried both but then I noticed that both kokarde seem to be the officer’s pattern so I changed the piping colour to red which was the colour for Medical Officers and NCOs.
The ribbon bar lacks detail so I simply used the most common colours found on WWI German ribbon bars. I don’t like it but for now it’s the best I can do.
The base for this reasoning of mine, if there is one, is flimsy at best so the colours chosen are for demonstration purposes only!!!
Aftermath
Berlin, 1923. Less than five years after the end of the Great War, Germany economy lies in ruins. A disabled war veteran begs in the street dressed in his pre-war dunkelblau waffenrock.
A ribbon bar with several (unfortunately indistinguishable) awards is pinned to his chest, below it an Iron Cross 1st Class, and below the Cross a Wound Badge in Silver, awarded for three or four wounds or a severe wound such as the loss of a limb or eyesight.
Original: Deutsches Historisches Museum, BA 90/5740
Notes on the colours: The tunic has some discrepancies. The collar and cuffs are of different colours which I believe they shouldn’t be. It has no shoulder boards which would give us the unit if the number and/or cypher were visible or at least narrow down a bit the number of possible units.
The cuffs have piping which is also odd unless he was Foot artillery but in that case the cuffs should be black which clearly they are not. There is no discernible vertical frontal piping. To make things worse, in 1923 modern Panchromatic emulsion was already in use so without a reference, a starting point, I have no way to tell which emulsion was used. A pity that the red in the Reich kokarde is not visible.
I was, and still am, at a loss so I turned my attention to the cap. Here I was able to narrow down the hypothesis. The piping is clearly of a different colour from the band so, assuming that the emulsion was panchromatic, I narrowed it down to 2 possibilities: Sanitätstruppen (Medical troops) or Krankenwärter (Medical Attendants). I tried both but then I noticed that both kokarde seem to be the officer’s pattern so I changed the piping colour to red which was the colour for Medical Officers and NCOs.
The ribbon bar lacks detail so I simply used the most common colours found on WWI German ribbon bars. I don’t like it but for now it’s the best I can do.
The base for this reasoning of mine, if there is one, is flimsy at best so the colours chosen are for demonstration purposes only!!!