Original Item: Only One Available. This is a very good condition example of a Rare German WWII DRB Bahnschutzpolizei (Railway protection police) overseas cap. This example shows high quality fabrication, made with the correct light blue-gray worsted wool, with the typical flap surrounding the entire lower perimeter. The front of the cap has a silver BeVo embroidered Railway Police eagle on a blue / gray background, which has a wheel around the swas underneath. There is also a BeVo embroidered tri-color cockade on the lower front, also on a blue gray background.

The cap has light gray Truppenfarbe (corps color) piping along both sides of the top, and also in a V-shaped soutache around the cockade. We unfortunately do not know what this particular color signifies, and we have only seen silver and black for the Railway Police corps colors.

The inside of the cap is lined with blue rayon or polished cotton twill, and does not have any type of sweatband around the circumference. It still bears a clear manufacturers mark stamped into the inner left side, which reads:-

Peter Küpper was a maker in the Ronsdorf district of Wuppertal in Western Germany, and a known supplier to the Bahnschutzpolizei, as well as other branches of the Police. They are a seldom seen maker and we have only had a few of their items before. To the left of the maker mark is a unit marking Bz. 11 Ffm., which we have unfortunately been unable to decipher.

The left outside of the cap has 1301 ENGINEER written in what looks to be laundry marker or something similar. We believe this to be a reference to the 1301st General Service Engineer Regiment, which landed at Utah beach on August 6, 1944. For the next seven months the 1301st supported the Third Army's drive across France and Germany. We assume that this cap was captured by a member of this regiment, which would have probably been more likely to encounter railway police items.

The condition of the cap is quite nice, though as with many wool caps, there are some moth nips to the exterior, though only in the nap of the fabric, with no holes we can see. The colors are well retained on both the interior and exterior, and it's really a very nice example, the first that we have ever encountered.

A very nice example of a rare German WWII Railway Protection Police overseas cap, brought home by a USGI. Ready to add to your collection!

The Deutsche Reichsbahn, also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regional railways of the individual states of the German Empire. The Deutsche Reichsbahn has been described as "the largest enterprise in the capitalist world in the years between 1920 and 1932", nevertheless its importance "arises primarily from the fact that the Reichsbahn was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in German history".

Deutsche Reichsbahn (1937 to 1945)
With the Act for the New Regulation of the Conditions of the Reichsbank and the Deutsche Reichsbahn (Gesetz zur Neuregelung der Verhältnisse der Reichsbank und der Deutschen Reichsbahn) of 10 February 1937 the Deutsche Reichsbahn Gesellschaft was placed under Reich sovereignty and was given the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB).

World War II and military use
The Reichsbahn had an important logistic role in supporting the rapid movement of the troops of the Wehrmacht for most of the important Pre-WWII and early war campaigns.

In all the occupied lands the Reichsbahn endeavored to incorporate the captured railways (rolling stock and infrastructure) into their system. Even towards the end of the war the Reichsbahn continued to move military formations. For example, in the last great offensive, the Battle of the Bulge (from 16 December 1944), tank formations were transported from Hungary to the Ardennes.

The DRB was instrumental to the entire functioning of the Third Reich, as the primary method for transportation of materiel and people. This unfortunately extended to uses for prisoners and Shoah victims as well.