HJ Overseas Sidecap – RZM Tagged

Product Description: This is a great, unworn, all-original HJ Overseas Sidecap, as worn with the summer uniform of the Hitler Youth. It’s made of a tan twill fabric, with red rayon piping. The front of the cap bears a Bevo machine embroidered Hitler Youth diamond emblem. The emblem is machine stitched to the cap, an original factory application. The interior is lined in tan fabric and has a machine sewn oilcloth RZM maker label. The RZM tag identifies the manufacturer as “13” and labels this hat as a “Sommer-Mütze” (summer cap). This HJ overseas cap has a crisp size stamp of “53,” a small size as one would expect for a youth item. The cap is in excellent condition inside and out, with only very slight age toning, and no sign of ever having been actually worn. A crisp, choice example, probably impossible to upgrade.

Historical Description: The “sidecap” 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 sidecap gave it the nickname “Schiffchen,” meaning little boat, due to its shape. The sidecaps were made in the same type of fabric as the uniforms, in the uniform color particular to each organization. The sidecaps were adorned with branch-specific insignia, usually bearing some form of the German eagle and swastika national emblem. Many sidecaps 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 sidecap with a new, more practical cap featuring a brim, by 1943. But the sidecap continued to be worn by some troops until the end of the war.

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