Original Item: Only One Available. This is an original German WWII Luftwaffe M43 style Pelzmütze winter field cap dated 1943 and sized 56, constructed from patchwork whitened sheepskin with the natural hide to the exterior and sheep’s wool to the interior. It retains its machine embroidered Luftwaffe eagle, separate padded national cockade, fold down ear and neck protection panels, original retaining button and thread loop, PRYM / 6 closure snaps, and a surviving red factory label with a partially legible RBNr. The cap displays very well and retains strong original wool color, though the sheepskin leather has become fragile with age and should be handled carefully.

The extreme cold encountered by German forces on the Eastern Front during the winter of 1941-42 exposed serious deficiencies in available cold weather clothing and snow camouflage equipment. Improvised garments were widely used until the German High Command began testing purpose-designed winter clothing in the spring of 1942. The selected winter clothing system entered issue later that year and included various styles of fur caps intended to provide greater protection to the head, ears, and neck in severe weather.

Winter fur caps were issued with other seasonal cold weather clothing and were intended to be returned to unit stores after the winter season for cleaning, repair, storage, and later reissue. Initially, officers and some senior NCOs were expected to obtain portions of their own winter clothing, but regulations were expanded in late 1942 so that issue winter garments could be supplied more broadly in cold-weather theaters.

There was no single universal fur cap pattern, but many examples followed the general form of the mountain cap and M43 field cap, with fold down side and rear panels to protect the wearer’s ears and neck. This example is a high quality multi-panel cap made from whitened sheepskin, with the leather side outward and the natural wool lining inward.

The front center carries a second pattern Luftwaffe eagle machine embroidered in light gray thread on a cut-out Luftwaffe blue-gray wool backing. Directly below it is a separate machine embroidered and padded national tricolor cockade. Both insignia remain securely attached and give the cap a very complete appearance.

The fold down side and rear panels are retained in the raised position by a thread loop and corresponding button, both of which remain present. When folded down, the panels protect the ears and neck, while the sheep’s wool becomes visible externally. The panels can also be brought beneath the chin and secured as needed.

Each side panel has a small circular cut-out with an overlapping horizontal U-shaped closure section. These are fitted with brown painted sheet metal snaps marked:

PRYM / 6

Additional male snaps allow the U-shaped closure panels to be fastened in the open position. On this example, the rear male snaps on both sides have pulled through the aged leather and are now caught inside the corresponding female snaps. They can be separated with the aid of a flat object, but the surrounding leather is delicate and should not be stressed unnecessarily.

A red factory label is sewn into the upper front seam. It is marked with the date:

1943

together with a partially legible RBNr.:

0/0250/090?

The far end of the label has frayed away, preventing the complete number from being read. The reverse side is stamped with the size:

56

The cap remains in very good display condition overall, with the original wool color particularly well retained. The leather side of the sheepskin, however, has deteriorated with age and is now fragile. In addition to the pulled-through rear snaps, there is a tear across the front crown and another tear at the right front adjacent to the insignia. The leather covering the top of the visor is also splitting and appears torn in areas where it joins the body of the cap.

With its 1943 factory date, size 56 marking, surviving RBNr. label, complete Luftwaffe front insignia, original retaining button, PRYM / 6 snaps, and characteristic fold down sheepskin construction, this is an appealing Eastern Front winter headgear example. The fragile leather, pulled-through rear snaps, crown tears, tear adjacent to the insignia, frayed factory label, and splitting visor leather are all fully disclosed. It would display especially well in a Luftwaffe winter uniform, Eastern Front, M43 headgear, sheepskin field equipment, or advanced German WWII headgear collection.

Reichsbetriebsnummer or RB number (also represented as RB Nr or Rbnr). Before the war, the Germans set up a system for registering and recording the factory information, the Reichsbetriebskartei. This was to help enable machine tabulation of facts and figures. It was from this that the Reichsbetriebsnummer came into being. The Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion (Ministry for Armaments and War Production) files survive today in the Bundesarchiv, however, these are only fragmentary. There is a holding file from the working group created by the Office of Machine Reporting in the Armament Office of the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production - their main focus was the operations of the industry group for which an economic interest was Armour production. This index provides information on the most important data of the companies covered by it, production profile, operating area, number of employees and the responsible operator.

As a prerequisite for the intended use of the punch-card method in the armaments industry, it was this system which gave rise to the Rbnr. The operating numbers were assigned by the competent local district offices of Machine reporting. (Bezirksstellen des Maschinellen Berichtswesens.) The index is in the form of index cards that are accessible numerically (approximately 14 meters of index cards!). Access to this register is only possible through the naming of this company, stating the place of production. The Reichsministerium für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion files have multiple entries on the introduction of the factory and also the lot no.

The Rbnr code was used from 1943 onwards and replaced the makers name and address (or company logo) on government contract uniforms, caps and field equipment and knives. It is either rubber ink stamped on cloth or die stamped onto leather & metal items. It has been written countless times that this numeric code system was introduced as a security measure to help mask production locations. This was not the case but it was perhaps, a helpful by- product of the system. It is not unknown to find the Rbnr together with the maker’s info. Had it been a security measure, clearly this practise would have been banned.

So what was the Rbnr? It was a nine digit number and was normally represented thus: RB Nr: 0/000/0000.

The first prefix number could range from 0 through to 9. This number determined the membership of the various groups in the realm of Trade and Industry (Reichsgruppenleitzahl)

• 0 Industry
• 1 Crafts
• 2 Commercial wholesale trading companies
• 3 Banking
• 4 Insurance Companies
• 5 Energy (Electrical companies and such)
• 6 Tourism (Including Hotels, Wine and Mineral Water companies)
• 7 Traffic
• 8 Food Industry
• 9 Not otherwise mentioned groups