Fall 2026 Militaria and Aviation Auction
Lot 444:
Description
WWII German NSKK Black Wool Schiffchen, RZM Tagged. WWII German NSKK-Mann Black Wool Overseas Field Cap (Schiffchen) with Metal Eagle Insignia M1/63, Buttons M5/82, and Intact RZM Control Label Herst. 1129, B.No. 130213 Offered here is an original Third Reich era enlisted man’s field service cap (Feldmuetze/Schiffchen) as worn by members of the Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, the NSDAP’s motorized transport corps. The cap retains its full complement of maker-marked metal fittings – a side-mounted NSKK eagle insignia and a pair of front buttons – along with its original RZM cloth control label bearing manufacturer code 1129 and the printed designation B.No. 130213, features that place this example among the better-documented surviving specimens of the type, though the markings identify the manufacturer and issue rather than a named wearer. Founded in 1931 as a paramilitary auxiliary tasked with training drivers and mechanics for the burgeoning motorized needs of the Party, the NSKK broke from SA control following the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 and matured into an independent NSDAP formation with its own uniforms, insignia, and regulations governing everything down to the stitching on a soldier’s cap. By the outbreak of war the corps had assumed a genuinely operational character, its personnel driving supply convoys, servicing vehicles, and manning transport columns in direct support of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe, while other NSKK units performed air-raid and civil defense duties on the home front. The black wool overseas cap offered here was governed by the same Reichszeugmeisterei (RZM) quality and licensing regime that regulated all Party uniform items, explaining the surviving cloth control label – a feature that has not survived on many extant examples and that here remains legible with its purple ink acceptance stamp still visible. The cap is constructed of black wool melton in the standard boat-shaped enlisted pattern, with a scalloped front flap secured by two silver-washed aluminum buttons bearing the NSKK pattern eagle device and maker-marked M5/82 for Steinhauer & Lueck of Luedenscheid. The left side bears a die-struck aluminum NSKK eagle insignia, wings spread above a wreathed mobile swastika beneath the banner legend NSKK.
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