Dutch Converted to Heer Overseas Cap

Product Description: This Heer Overseas Cap is a great piece that started off as a prewar Dutch Army cap, later reworked and reissued by the German Army during the war. The cap is made of typical prewar Dutch materials, with a slightly bluish, high quality field gray wool exterior and a twill lining. There are a couple of seams on the front where this was reworked by the Germans to be more similar to the Wehrmacht pattern, before being reissued. Typically these reworked Dutch caps have a two-piece insignia set with eagle and cockade like pre-1943 German caps. This one has a 1943 pattern trapezoid insignia. This insignia is hand sewn (as is typical for all German insignia on these reissue caps) and could be a wartime replacement for the earlier insignia. This Heer Overseas Cap has no markings inside which is not unusual. It shows only slight wear, with no mothing or staining. This cap displays very well and remains in excellent plus condition.

Historical Description: The “side cap” was a part of the uniform worn by nearly all military, paramilitary, political and civil organizations in the Third Reich. It was a narrow hat that could be folded flat and tucked into a belt or haversack. This was, at the time, a very stylish type of uniform cap; in the German Army, it replaced the round “pork pie” style of field cap used in the Great War. The German name for this cap, in most organizations, was “Feldmütze”- field cap. Despite the name, it was often worn as a daily service cap by postal workers and other personnel who would never be deployed to the field.  The men and women who wore the side cap gave it the nickname “Schiffchen,” meaning little boat, due to its shape. The side caps were made in the same type of fabric as the uniforms, in the uniform color particular to each organization. The side caps were adorned with branch-specific insignia, usually bearing some form of the German eagle and swastika national emblem. Many side caps also bore red, white, and black national cockades. The insignia were usually embroidered or woven, but metal devices were used on some caps as well. Officer caps generally were distinguished by silver braid along the top edge and/or on the upper part of the flap at the front of the cap and were often custom tailored from fine fabrics. The German military, and many other organizations, had broadly replaced the side cap with a new, more practical cap featuring a brim, by 1943. But the side cap continued to be worn by some troops until the end of the war.

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