Panzer Signals EM Overseas Cap

Product Description: This Panzer Signals EM Overseas Cap is an extremely rare and desirable piece of German Army headgear, that would likely be impossible to upgrade. It’s a top quality, early piece, in pristine, near mint condition. It shows no sign of ever having been worn. The exterior of the cap is made of a textbook, early type finely woven black wool fabric. The insignia are “Bevo” machine woven, and are factory applied and original to the cap. The eagle is a 1939 pattern, with a subdued gray eagle on a black background. This eagle has been applied in a typical “zip and flip” fashion, with the top edge being sewn with the eagle positioned upside down and backwards. The eagle was then flipped over and the remaining stitching completed by hand. The cockade is entirely machine applied with a typical straight stitch. This fantastic cap is also complete with lemon yellow “Russia braid” branch piping soutache, as used prior to June 1942. This color was used by Panzer-Nachrichten (Panzer Signals) units. The soutache is also machine applied to the cap as one would expect. There is no mothing or other damage. The interior of this Panzer Signals EM Overseas Cap is lined with a typical, early, tan cotton twill fabric which is still crisp and pristine. This lining is nicely stamped, with a maker stamp of “Max Hart, Stadtbergen” and a size stamp 57. These caps are not at all common in any condition; to find one like this is extremely challenging. This could be the centerpiece of a German Army field cap collection.

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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