Original German WWII Kriegsmarine Evening Dress Reefer Petty Officer Jacket with Minesweeper Badge – Teletypist Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a tailor made German WWII evening dress Kriegsmarine reefer jacket for the rank of Bootsmannmaat (Petty Officer). The short jacket for evening dress is constructed of fine blue wool with gold kriegsmarine buttons, Bootsmannmaat (Petty Officer) teletypist trade patch, gold ribbon rank cuffs, and wonderful embroidered yellow eagle to the right chest. The jacket is an impressive double breasted 9 button front. Medal award loops still present. This is a high quality WW2 German Naval NCO evening dress uniform jacket offered in wonderful condition.

The inside still bears the tailor tag:

X 74 T
33
NORDHAUS

The jacket features all original button and vest “button chain” for securing the front. The only award featured on the threaded loops is the Kriegsmarine Minesweeper War Badge by Otto Placzek. The badge is made of gilt silver and gold tombac and is in lovely condition with much of the original finish retained.

This is truly a lovely example that comes ready to display!

Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 9”
Shoulder to sleeve: 22.5”
Shoulder to shoulder: 16”
Chest width: 15”
Waist width: 15.5”
Hip width: N/A”
Front length: 21″

The Kriegsmarine was the navy of NSDAP Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.

In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the Kriegsmarine grew rapidly during German
naval rearmament in the 1930s. The 1919 treaty had limited the size of the German navy and prohibited the building of submarines.

Kriegsmarine ships were deployed to the waters around Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) under the guise of enforcing non-intervention, but in reality supported the Nationalists against the Spanish Republicans.

In January 1939, Plan Z, a massive shipbuilding program, was ordered, calling for surface naval parity with the British Royal Navy by 1944. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Plan Z was shelved in favor of a crash building program for submarines (U-boats) instead of capital surface warships, and land and air forces were given priority of strategic resources.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (as for all branches of armed forces during the period of absolute NSDAP power) was Adolf H, who exercised his authority through the Oberkommando der Marine (“High Command of the Navy”).

The Kriegsmarine’s most significant ships were the U-boats, most of which were constructed after Plan Z was abandoned at the beginning of World War II. Wolfpacks were rapidly assembled groups of submarines which attacked British convoys during the first half of the Battle of the Atlantic but this tactic was largely abandoned by May 1943 when U-boat losses mounted. Along with the U-boats, surface commerce raiders (including auxiliary cruisers) were used to disrupt Allied shipping in the early years of the war, the most famous of these being the heavy cruisers Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer and the battleship Bismarck. However, the adoption of convoy escorts, especially in the Atlantic, greatly reduced the effectiveness of surface commerce raiders against convoys.

Following the end of World War II in 1945, the Kriegsmarine’s remaining ships were divided up among the Allied powers and were used for various purposes including minesweeping. Some were loaded with superfluous chemical weapons and scuttled.