Inquiring after SA authority & author Jill Halcomb

[Sewer King]

Some years ago I bought Jill Halcomb's book The SA: A Historical Perspective (Crown/Agincourt Publishers, 1985). A well-researched and illustrated history of both the Sturmabteilung, its organization, uniforms, and insignia. Very probably a book well-enough known in this forum.

I know this might not truly fit in this forum about women in the Third Reich, but from her book she seems interesting in herself as a woman who is a leading authority on this subject. Not that it is impossible, simply that there seem to be relatively few women who are published as such.

Can anyone find some information on this author? In looking up Halcomb on my own, I could not find out anything generally. Certain leading Uniformenkunde authors such as Robert Rankin and the Mollo brothers Andrew and John trace back to their own military experience, or to militaria collecting. Other authors start from scholarly approaches. But one can see how they got their start in the field. Halcomb's book is highly-focused and detailed like those by John Angolia and others published by Roger Bender, so it made me curious.

There is no author information on the book's dust jacket or in her introduction. She does however, have a handsome autograph for this numbered copy 188 of 500.

I personally have heard of only one other woman in the Third Reich collecting, a dealer I met briefly at an antiques show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1992. She had entered the field by inheriting her father's collection. Evidently she became as knowledgable as he had been, for she explained in detail about a selection of daggers and a complete Nazi diplomat's uniform she had brought to the show. She acknowledged in passing how unusual it was to be a female dealer.

For all I know there might be some small number of German women who are authorities or leading collectors of Third Reich history and militaria by one avenue or another, but who are not known here or published in English -- I don't know. And maybe there are some few others elsewhere, equally unknown to me, but known to more expert people such as those on this board.

Any general info about Halcomb as an author -- or opinions, thoughts, or experience with women in the Third Reich militaria field -- will be appreciated.

[Hallandsen]

Hi
The authors name is really

Jill Halcomb Smith-and her first book, It seems to be,
Uniforms and Insignia of the German Foreign Office and Government Ministries 1938-45
and she made tribute to a book by Angolia/In the service of the Reich/Bender/1995
but she also made book about caps-
She would also have to be known together with the military collector/writer Otto Spronk.

this was not all, but all I know at the moment
Hi from
Hallandsen

[Sewer King]

Thank you for the info -- I saw the author's name as Smith also in at least one of those titles. Otto Spronk is credited in her acknowledgements for The SA: A HIstorical Perspective.

From her introduction to that book I almost thought at first that she was a firsthand witness to the Nazi regime, like William Shirer. But that would have made her much older than any author current on that subject in the 1980s.

Despite the wealth of uniform and insignia detail in her book, her introduction asks you to leave those off for a moment in favor of something in her contemporary experience:

"Late one Sunday afternoon I was relaxing at an outdoor cafe by the Marienplatz in Munich. It had been an absolutely glorious day of sightseeing and I was reveling in the beauty of the city as I sipped tea.

"I was completely engrossed in my thoughts, contemplating the breathtaking scenery, the flowers in the window boxes, and the fabulous architecture. While sitting there, through the din of the crowd, I heard the sound of men chanting. I paid little attention at first, but the chanting and singing grew louder and louder as it came closer to the cafe. Suddenly the singing grew very loud and the stomping of shoes on the stone pavement grew more pronounced until the people around me stopped and took notice. Before our cafe marched a group of about thirty young men, one of them carrying an Italian flag. They stopped in front of us and began chanting, occasionally extending a stiff arm with clenched fist into the air in unison.

"Suddenly, in the midst of this demonstration came the sound of another group approaching. This group was apparently aware that the Italians were near, for they began to chant and stomp even louder. By now the cafe was still and you could have cut the uneasiness with a knife (It was at this point that I suggested to my companions that we should go elsewhere). Up from the Weinstrasse the second group appeared, one of them carrying the black, red, and gold flag of the Federal Republic of Germany, and from the increased volume of the chanting it was very evident that these two groups were, in some fashion, opposed to each other. This "confrontation" ended without incident, except for a few cheers from the crowd, for the groups turned out to be the two rival soccer teams who were to compete for the world championship in Spain the next day.

"What I am trying to illustrate is the horrible fear and unbridled terror that was manifested in many lives by the SA. This incident was probably hardly noticed by my companions, but for a person who had studied the Third Reich for much of her life, it was a chilling revelation. The sounds of the marching echoing on the cobblestones and the chanting and waving of flags was quite an experience. For one brief moment, as I sat in the very city where the NSDAP was born, I felt the terror of what became the Third Empire. I hope this will be the last time that I experience that feeling.

[signed]
"JILL HALCOMB"

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At that, it does sound remotely like Shirer's descriptions of the NSDAP torchlight rallies.

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

She lives in Denver (Colorado, USA), but doesn't do much in the militaria field anymore. At least this was all the case when I spoke to her on the phone a few years ago. She may have moved since.