Original German WWII Luftwaffe Blue Electric Heated Winter Flying Trousers – RBNr. Marked Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. Development of protective flight uniforms and equipment began with the advent of military aircraft in WWI and continued on into the Weimar and the Third Reich eras, resulting in three distinct one-piece combination pattern flight suits being approved before WWII and worn for the duration of the war with minor modifications. There were also two piece varieties developed at the same time, which allowed more flexibility in fit and use.

This is a very good used condition pair of heavy winter flight trousers, constructed from a blue twill fabric shell, with purple velvet plush type material lining. This extends all the way to the bottoms of the legs, and really looks great. The section of lining behind the main zipper closure is navy blue, and probably came as part of the zipper. It features a plug in wired heating system, which still looks to be intact, having a wire connector coming out of the left outer pocket, which would connect to the electronic system of the aircraft. There is also an interior connector that would probably connect to the jacket portion of the set. There are also additional connectors at the ends of the legs for the use of heated boots.

We checked the snaps and all are STOCKO marked, a known supplier of snaps for the Luftwaffe during WWII. The main front closure zipper is by ZIPP, as are  the zippers on the bottoms of the legs and the right side pocket. The left side lower pocket also has a ZIPP brand zipper, while the upper pocket is Elite, both known Luftwaffe suppliers. All of the zippers still have their leather pull tabs and are fully functional, except for the left leg lower sipper, which is missing a lot of teeth on the lower 4 inches. Everything looks totally correct, and we see no signs of post war alterations.

There is still an original maker label on the inside of the waist, which also bears some faded inspection stamps. It reads:

1B
0/0250/0274

We assume that the “1B” refers to the size of the trousers, and there does not appear to be any other type of size indication. Research might possibly be able to identify the maker, however the RBNr. system remains mostly unknown, even today.

A lovely service used pair of Luftwaffe Heated Winter Flying trousers, ready to research and display!

Approximate Measurements:
Waist: 15″
Inseam: 29″

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