Mysterious Schutztruppe WW1 Tunic

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Chris Dale
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Mysterious Schutztruppe WW1 Tunic

#1

Post by Chris Dale » 04 Jan 2015, 20:56

Hello chaps,

Here's a very mysterious tunic, which our friend Cristiano pointed out to me. It's photographed in "The German Colonial Troops" by Juergen Kraus and Thomas Mueller on Verlag Militaria P367-8.
mysttunic1.jpg
As you can see it looks like a regular 1896 Schutztruppe Khaki tunic, blue piping and imperial coloured shoulder cords. But have a closer look-
mysttuniccollar.jpg
mysttuniccollar.jpg (29.01 KiB) Viewed 1054 times
The first odd bit is that rank is indicated by short gold lace collar bars. The Schutztruppe usually had arm chevrons and even such units as the Asienkorps which later wore Schutztruppe uniforms kept these chevrons rather than using lace on the Schutztruppe uniform...

The second odd thing is the use of wartime Prussian buttons, seen here. Usually the Schutztruppe had the Imperial crown on their shiny polished buttons. These have the Prussian crown- I've seen that occasionally done before- the Schutztruppe tunic that the Imperial War Museum used to display has Prussian buttons. But these are wartime dull metal ones, so cannot have been issued before the war to soldiers going to Africa... at this point I thought the buttons may have been added later to a pre-war tunic but no...
mysttunicstamp.jpg
KA1915 stamp! It was wartime issue...

Any ideas folks?

Cheers
Chris

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danebrog
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Re: Mysterious Schutztruppe WW1 Tunic

#2

Post by danebrog » 22 Mar 2015, 10:41

Perhaps war time fabrication? A batch of uniforms was delivered by the blockade runners in 1915.
Even in the 20´s some stores hold considerable amounts of Schutztruppe uniforms:
Many vets used them after the war and also some local SA Standarten


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Chris Dale
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Re: Mysterious Schutztruppe WW1 Tunic

#3

Post by Chris Dale » 27 Mar 2015, 15:35

Thanks, that is one of the most likely answers...

As the tunic is in a modern German collection and doesn't appear to be war damaged, I don't think it ever went to Africa. I wonder if it was on the Zeppelin that turned back over Sudan?

Cheers
Chris

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