Original Item: Only One Available. This cap is a lovely "salty" service used example of a German WWII Wehrmacht Heer Army Pioneer Corps EM/NCO Schirmmütze visor "crush" cap, with a fantastic saddle form shape. Made with flexible leather visors and no crown reinforcement, these were quite flexible, and easily took on the iconic shape. The wear on this cap gives it a fantastic well broken in look that is impossible to duplicate, and many consider these to be the "true" crusher cap, flexible enough to almost be folded up.

It features the typical feldgrau (field gray) "doeskin" weave wool gabardine construction with a flaschengrün (dark bottle-green) "badge cloth" band and a traditional high forward crown. The cap has matching matching Schwarz (Black) piping along the top edge and flanking either side of the band. This is the Waffenfarbe (Corps Color) for the Pioniere (Combat engineers), as well as Assault, Armored, Fortress, and Railway engineers.

It is decorated with a well detailed bullion hand embroidered eagle insignia on the peak and and an open silver BeVo embroidered wreath surrounding a tri-color cockade on the band. The insignia show wear commensurate with age and long service, with staining on the wreath, and wear and oxidation showing on the bullion eagle.

The cap does not have a chin strap, and there is no indication that it was made with one. As the chin straps were not really used, they were omitted sometimes, especially on the EM/NCO versions, which did not need the bullion strap to denote officer rank. The black leather visor is still in very good shape and supple, showing a lovely pattern of checking and crazing on the top and bottom, caused by age related deterioration of the leather finish. It is still firmly attached to the cap, though the stitching at the very ends has rotted out a bit.

The cap is lined with orange "service cloth" type light oil cloth, originally light orange brown, but now well stained from use in service. The crown lining has torn through in a large area in the center, and shows a lot of fraying to the material. The brown leather sweatband is still partly present, and is stained from sweat and oils. There is a section missing over half of the forehead area, with the stitching pulling out in a few places as well.

A great "salty" example of the classic hat worn by German Pioneer NCOs in WWII. Very impressive and ready to display!

The German Schirmmütze Visor Cap:
The visor cap (Schirmmütze) was an important part of the headgear worn by German uniformed military, civil, paramilitary and political organizations during the Third Reich. This was the standard cloth headgear worn as a part of the service uniform. Visor caps were worn outdoors as well as indoors, and were often required to be worn by all personnel on duty. Visor caps were made in versions specific to each organization and were often further differentiated through the use of insignia, colored piping, or style of chin cord, to indicate rank, role or branch. The insignia used on these caps ranged from simple stamped metal emblems, to elaborate hand embroidery. Visor caps were issued to enlisted soldiers and NCOs in the military and in some other organizations. Officers had to purchase their own hats, and lower ranks could choose to purchase caps that were of a higher quality than the rather basic, issue examples. The private purchase caps were generally made in very high quality, with fine materials. A wide variety of fabrics were used, from Trikot and doeskin, to heavy wool, or even lightweight white fabric for summer wear. In the military, issue of these caps was generally suspended shortly after the outbreak of the war, but they continued to be worn by some troops until the end of the war.