Original German WWII Luftwaffe M43 Einheitsmütze Wool Field Cap with RBNr. Markings – size 55cm Original Items

Original Item: Only One Available. This is a great lightly used example of a Luftwaffe M43 Einheitsmütze Wool field cap, with a lovely lightly worn look. The cap is constructed of Fliegerblau (Flyer’s Blue) blue/grey Luftwaffe wool, and has the correct “fold down” skirt for colder weather. It features two blue-painted pebbled buttons to the front, securing the skirt, and has the correct rayon loops on the underside.

The peak of the cap has a very nice machine embroidered cap eagle, with the correct light silver gray thread on a blue gray backing. Below this is a BeVo embroidered tri-color cockade with the correct color diamond shaped backing. Both are correctly only sewn to the outer layer of fabric, so they are definitely original to the cap. The interior of cap is lined with a blue gray rayon material, which is standard for this type of cap. It has light sweat stains around the front edge, showing some use, but it still has the original manufacture information stamped on the inside of the crown:

0/0501/0016
55

The visor is still in good condition, though it does have a crack in the stiffener in the middle, very common to see on these caps, which used cardboard. This gets brittle over time and breaks easily unfortunately.

Overall condition is really good, showing light wear and no major damage from mothing or use. There is almost no fading to the exterior fabric, just a bit of overall staining, particularly visible on the top of the Luftwaffe Eagle and around the edge of the brim.

A lovely example, ready to add to your collection!

The M43 Einheitsmütze (Unit Cap) is a variety of “Ski Cap” and was based on the Bergmütze (Mountain Hat) used by Austrian and German Gebirgsjäger (Mountain Troops) during WWI. Germany had adopted it in 1915, and after the war it spread throughout the military.

The skirt that surrounds the cap is made in the same wool as the cap, and can be folded down over the ears, though this was rarely done outside of the Mountain troops, which had a double-thickness skirt. The skirt has a small dip in the front quarter with a divide secured by one aluminum button which is covered by an embroidered cockade. The small section in the front quarter was built shorter to show the insignia, and cover the wearer’s chin or mouth, without disturbing breathing by covering the nose. There were also later M43 caps, such as those used by the DAK, that omitted the skirt entirely, as it had little use in the desert heat.

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