Panzer Artillery Officers Cap

Product Description: Panzer Artillery Officers Cap with red soutache for the artillery branch. This Heer overseas cap is made in a high quality black wool with moderate wear, but with very little damage, mainly on exposed areas from being worn. Light soiling is present on the lower front and lower rear section, with lighter soiling around the lower edge. Two early high quality black painted brass rivets are present. Silver bullion officer piping is present around the top and the forward flap, with moderate damage and wear from being worn; especially on the lower front, and the front and rear of the top piping. Approximately three inches of damage with the inner core sometimes visible. Bullion officer Heer eagle is hand applied and era sewn, with light wear and damage, and with several loose strands in the center of the eagle. Cockade is hand applied and also era sewn, with the matching wear and soiling. The red soutache is era applied to the cap. While the tails of the braid are correctly sewn through the cap, the braid was applied with black thread hand applied through its center. There is no indication of the soutache having been postwar applied. The cap is lined in a high quality black rayon with a nice uniform natural wear and light damage around the lower edge from being worn. No markings are present and one inch of the lining is open near the lower front. A rare example of a Panzer Artillery Officers Cap not easily found on the market.

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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