Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 392:
Description
WWII German Officer’s Private-Purchase Tall Leather Riding/Service Boots (Reitstiefel / Schaftstiefel), Pair with Wooden-Pegged Soles and Woven Herringbone Pull-Straps Offered here is a pair of tall black leather boots consistent with the private-purchase footwear worn by commissioned officers of the German Wehrmacht during the Second World War. Their high stiffened shafts, fitted ankles and internal woven pull-straps distinguish them at once from the heavier, hobnailed Marschstiefel issued to enlisted ranks. No maker’s mark, size stamp or named association is visible in the photographs, and no separate biography or unit history can be attached to this example; the attribution rests on construction, materials and pattern consistent with wartime German officer boots rather than any surviving documentation. German officers were long responsible for furnishing their own uniform items, including tall boots, a tradition that persisted even as the Wehrmacht expanded rapidly through the late 1930s and into the war. Boots of this cut served both mounted officers in the campaigns of the early war, when the horse still played a significant logistical and cavalry role, and staff and garrison officers later in the conflict, making them a practical necessity as well as a mark of an officer’s private means, since quality varied with the bootmaker and price paid. Such boots were worn across every theater in which the German officer corps served, and surviving pairs remain among the most tangible links to the everyday material culture of that officer class. Each boot is fashioned from black leather with a tall shaft designed to sit below the knee, the leather showing the natural creasing, breaking-in and give of genuine wear. The interior of each shaft retains a woven cotton pull-strap in a herringbone twill weave, stitched at the heel seam to assist the wearer in donning the boot, with fraying and loss visible at the tab ends. The soles are leather, edged around the perimeter with rows of small wooden pegs (Holznaegel) rather than hobnails, with a metal toe plate fitted to the front of each sole, and the stacked leather heels show wear consistent with use on hard ground. The boots are offered as a pair. Condition is fair to good and consistent with genuine period use: the black leather shows surface creasing, scuffing and minor finish loss around the ankles and shafts while retaining overall suppleness; the soles show moderate ground wear with the wooden pegging intact along the edges and the toe plates present; and the interior leather rim bindings show light wear alongside the fraying noted to the pull-tabs. A solid, honestly worn example of the tall leather boot every German officer was expected to provide for himself, its pegged soles and herringbone pull-tabs offering collectors a tangible link to the everyday equipment of wartime officer service.
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