Were the uniforms used in Schindler's List accurate?

[Ian Hulley]

I wanna know what uniforms some of the guards were wearing. They appear to be black M36 style but have light coloured cuffs and collar? I can't tell the colour with the black and white film.

These were the issue black Dienst Rocks which were collected in from the pre-war SS-VT/SS-TV, they were stripped and re-issued as they were to some Germanic-SS organisations (Holland, Denmark, Norway etc) others had the French cuffs dyed and were issued to the 'Schuma' (Eastern Auxiliary Police units) and 'Trawniki' guard units which is what is portrayed in Schindler's List.

Ian

[Carney]

Goeth was SS-Hauptsturmführer der Reserve by the end of the war, he never received the Iron Cross 2nd Class (the ribbon Feines wears in the button hole and to the left of the ribbon bar). The deaths head tab is truly awful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_G%C3%B6th

Ian

Are you objecting to the use of a death's head collar tab? I at first thought this was Hollywood invention to make the death's head prominent in scenes when a character is not wearing the infamous SS visored peaked cap with the death's head on it, only to realize later that the collar tab death's head was standard insignia for all ranks in the SS-Totenkopfverbände (who manned the camps) and was also used by the Waffen SS 3rd Panzer Division Totenkopf, most of whose members had been transferred from the SS-TV camp guards.

If your objection is that the movie version death's head in the collar tab looks primitive, poorly-rendered, or in some other way not matching the "classic" SS death's head from the peaked caps, that's actually accurate too. Do an image search for "totenkopf collar tab" and you'll see.

[von thoma]

Photos for comparison

One thing is certain, the TK collar patch is not an original, and therefore not exact

Totenkopf Patch.jpg (98.2 KiB) Viewed 1613 times

However worse things were seen ; Rudolf Höss with a metallic Dazinger skull, in “ Sophie's Choice ” ( 1982 )

[Hans1906]

This attention to detail is strange in this context...

"Schindlers Liste" was a feature film, not a documentary, maybe some of the local experts should take care of the next production, for the equipment perfect down to the last detail...

You can also overdo it, unfortunately, Axis History Forum is not Hollywood.
The feature film is very good, a masterpiece, a modern classic that cannot be topped.

When I look at the "fan pictures" of Ralph Fiennes as Amon Göth on the Internet, frightening.


Hans

[Sheldrake]

One of my reservist colleagues used to work at Angel and Berman, the London based theatrical costumier. He said that Angle and Berman provided a lot of the costumes. They sourced much from eastern European countries and were offered actual concentration camp uniforms - which they turned down. But he could just have been telling a good dit.

[Hans1906]

Hi Sheldrake,

that's unbelievable, even then the few uniforms were in private hands, this stuff was never available for feature films, all that was 100% "properties" for movies, tailor-made.

And that's exactly the problem, the uniforms weren't that sharp and clean, who can recreate such a horror ?

But it makes no sense to speculate, for many viewers the Nazis were and are "cool", that's frightening.
This fascination with evil is in all of us, Hollywood has inspired everything, whoever denies that, is not speaking the truth.


Hans

P.S. I remember an international film outfitter, Mr. B. from Wilhelmshaven supplied film studios worldwide with German vehicles, I will not mention his name. The man earned an ass full of money, he had everything, every motorcycle, every tank, German anti-aircraft guns were nothing special.

The very first time, I saw a german MG 81 (Zwilling) for 2500,- german Mark.
At that time, large holes had to be cut into the old tanks, 30 centimeters in diameter were required, in order not to be considered a weapon of war.

I never saw a MG 81 "Twin" again, the price at that time was 2500,- Mark, very expensive at that time.
Everything had a price, absolutely everything, luckily we didn't have the money...

MG 81 https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_81


Hans

[von thoma]

This attention to detail is strange in this context...

Hans is not fond of paying attention to details.
But I will give you one that surely went unnoticed ;

In all Security Police uniforms they should not wear the NSDAP tie pin, as was usual in the black SS uniform.
I can't find any photographic evidence to support this use of the pin.
It was probably removed by some Befehlsblatt der RFSS.

The film does not have a Historical Consultant, or Military Advisor, according to the technical file,
but it appears a Costume and Wardrobe Department ( Poland, Heritage Films ), which I guess
is in charge of obtaining, or making the uniforms.